Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Carrasco School of Medicine (how my Mexican mom and grandmother got us through childhood)

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My knees were hurting me the other day due to the arthritis which is such a wonderful family tradition.    As I reached for the ibuprofen, I remembered the various remedies that my mom and grandmother used on me for my aches and pains while growing up.   My grandmother, Mauricia Carrasco Rivera had a ton of remedies for whatever ailed us.   She passed those down to my mom.

As far as they were concerned just about anything I had wrong with me could be solved with 3 primary remedies –

1.  Vicks Vaporub

2.  a 7-up  or

3.  a lavativa (enema).

When I mean everything, I pretty much mean anything.  All colds, flu, sniffles, muscle aches, headaches, etc. required what seems like 2 inch thick layers of vaporub on the bottom of our feet and all over our chest.  If it made you sweat, that was a good thing.  For good measure they stuck it in our nostrils too.

If it was stomach related then the answer was to drink a 7-Up.  All you had to do was burp and you would feel all better. I remember hearing George Lopez mention this in one of his stand up routines and it surprised me that someone other than my mom and grandmother followed this line of thought.

The final remedy was the worst of all.  Somehow my mom felt that the root of all problems that I ever had were the result of toxins and poisons that I carried in my colon.   Those horrible toxins needed flushing out with an enema.  Today the mere glance at a hot water bottle gives me the chills because I expect a long white hose to be coming out of the end of it destined to go where no man has gone before.   My mom would get very upset with me because I kept kidding her that I hoped I never broke my leg because an enema would be her first treatment option.
Other treatments included olive oil (either straight out of the bottle or heated), a big paper cone that they stuck in your ear and lit on fire (seriously, I am not kidding) and copious amounts of Karo syrup.   Of course no good Mexican mom would be without manzanilla, yerba buena, epazote and canela.  And for good measure, a headache needed some Mejoral and a Coke.

Don’t get me wrong.   They never tried to hurt me.  Every little bit of treatment they gave me came with a great amount of love.  Whether or not it had a placebo effect is unknown.  All I know is that when they finished doctoring us I usually felt better.

A big part of what they did was purely financial.  Doctors then, as now, were pretty far out of a single mom’s budget for two little boys.   It was much cheaper to buy a few herbs that would otherwise do the trick.

My mom was a very smart woman.   She became one of the very first Certified Respiratory Therapists in El Paso,  despite the fact she never finished high school.   Despite all my efforts, however, she would never answer my “scientific” questions that I asked about those remedies.  I took a lot of Biology and Chemistry classes and had my doubts about what she did for us. Her only response was “You’re not dead, are you?”

And you know, she was right.  I am still counted among the living.  I still drink manzanilla when my stomach  is upset, and a 7 Up or Sprite never hurts when I have a tummy ache.

Mexican moms, you gotta love em.

Mom, I miss you.

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“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” -Tenneva Jordan

I ran across this quote recently and immediately thought of my mom.  There had to have been hundreds of times that I know that this wonderful woman did without so that her “hijitos” could have that extra slice of pie, or piece of bread, or even a bowl of beans because all of a sudden “she wasn’t hungry. ”   When my mom was raising my brother and I by herself, which she did from the time I was about a year and half old till the time I was just short of 11 years old, I can remember seeing her wearing ratty, old clothing to make sure that Art and I had decent clothes to use to go to church and school.    On her meager nurses aid salary she saved and saved to make sure we had an awesome Christmas, with little or nothing to show for herself.  Even after she married my dad and became a respiratory therapist she scrimped and saved to make sure that we had all those little goodies that we all wanted (my dad included).    Sacrifice for others was part of who she was.

As a young naive child I asked her if it was ok to tell a lie.   Of course she told me that it wasn’t.   My next comment caught her off guard when I asked her why she lied about being hungry when I could hear her stomach grumble at the dinner table.  “Just wait, mi hijito, when you have children you will understand.”   Now some 50 years later I fully understand.

What made this wonderful woman so special to me and to her family?    I recently asked several of my family members to write something about her so that my granddaughter Chloe would know something about her.     I am amazed at the different things that everyone remembered about her.  She was described as “special”, “loving”, “strong”, “independent”, and “selfless” among many things.  Thinking about what made her special to me is hard because of the many influences she has had on my life.

One of my earliest memories was watching my mom work her crossword puzzles.   By the time I was in high school she could fill those things out like she was filling out an application.  Her explanation to me was that it helped her learn English.   My mom did not have a lot of education but she had an awesome vocabulary.   She never graduated high school, but was the first of her group of Respiratory Therapists to get certified – even before the ones that had received their Associates Degree as an RT.  She worked her way up from being a nurses aide to being one of the first RT’s certified in El Paso. Needless to say, education was an important focus in my life,  and I received a lot of encouragement and support for my educational endeavors.

I have a memory of walking to the park with her and my brother and being stopped by the Border Patrol.   They wanted to know what she was doing with these little white boys.  They would not believe that we were her boys, they assumed she was the maid taking care of some lady’s kids.  This continued for a long time, so much so that we hated to see that uniform at any time, even years after my mom had become an American citizen.      My mom came to the US to work.  She spoke English well enough to cross the border and convince them that she was an American.  Ironically, she started by working as a maid and taking care of a lady’s kids.

To this day I cringe when I hear the word “wetback”.   My mom, although she came across illegally, contributed more to this country with her hard work, patriotism, and attitude than a hell of a lot of “citizens.”    She taught me to stand with my hand over my heart during the pledge of allegiance and national anthem.  She taught me to make sure I voted, regardless of how small the election happened to be.  My mom taught me that it was better to work extra hours or extra jobs than to rely on getting handouts from the government.

She also taught me to be comfortable with being who I was.  Another word I hate is “gringo.”   Having spent so much time with my grandparents in Juarez I was constantly taunted by the kids in the neighborhood with that phrase.    For the Mexican part of my family I was the little white boy, to my father’s family I was the little Mexican kid.   I had a hard time identifying where I belonged.  My mom told me that I was special and that I should not let anyone categorize me.

My wife tells me that I have to learn to say no, that I try to be helpful so often that people take advantage of me.   This certainly came from my mom.   She was a giving person almost to a fault.  But you know, I don’t see this as a weakness.  It is a reflection of the loving giving spirit that my mom nurtured in me.

My mom loved my girls a lot.   She often reminded me of the conversations we had when she explained to me how being a parent would change my life.  I wish she had been around to see them marry, to see them graduate from college, to see them fulfill their goals and dreams.   As crazy as I am about my granddaughter, my mom would have been even crazier about her.

A lot of things go into making me the person that I am.  My faith, my life experiences, and the influences of others around me certainly helped cobble together the pieces of my life.  The parts of me that others may consider special, however, I am certain came from this wonderful woman.

On January 28th the 10th anniversary of my mom’s passing came and went.  I started writing this days before that anniversary.    It is now February 12th.  Writing down my thoughts is normally not a problem, but this time I really struggled.   There is nothing I can write that will do my mom’s memory justice.  All I can say is that I miss the love in her voice, the calming influence in my life, and that special smile she always had for me.    All I can say is I miss you mom.

A wonderful old man.

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In my mind I can see him getting off the bus.  He had travelled from his home in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico to downtown, walked across the bridge to El Paso, Texas, waited in the main plaza for a bus, and took that bus 30 minutes to a house in the Lower Valley.  This was the second trip in a week, each visit probably took him 2 hours round trip, and he  had made the same semi-weekly trip for a couple of months.

Was he visiting a sick relative?  No.  Was he coming to do some work at the house?  No.   Was he coming to see his daughter?  Well, yes and no.  His daughter would not be home from work for 3 or 4 hours.  The purpose for this trip, as well as all the others he had been taking, was for a very simple reason.   His grandson, at the age of  20, had finally decided to take advantage of this old man’s incredible musical talent and have him teach him guitar.  This offer, as well as an offer to teach him violin, had been extended since the time his grandson was 3 or 4 years old.   Like the frivolous youth that he was, his grandson kept telling him “no.”

The old man was quite well know in Juarez as a “maestro” for his ability to play multiple stringed instruments and for teaching many young kids in Juarez how to play.  He organized a series of “rondallas” in Juarez that entertained many people.   But his grandson had other “more important” things on his mind.   Oh my, if he only knew how short a period of time he would have with his grandfather.   The lessons seemed to fly by in an incredibly short time, and true to the talent that the grandfather possessed, the grandson was rapidly mastering the intricacies of the stringed instrument that he now longed to play.

The call came on a hot August afternoon in 1976.  The old man had suffered a stroke.  One day later, Arturo Rivera Frias, my grandfather, passed away.   The guitar that I had so badly wanted to play went into a closet and I did not pick it up for almost 20 years.  At 40, the guitar was much more difficult to learn to play.  I still miss the simple, straightforward way that my grandfather was able to teach.  The guitar that I so badly wanted to play I now just play badly.

This is not an attempt to assuage my guilt over turning him down for so long.  This is rather an homage to a man who loved his grandsons unconditionally, and who helped his daughter raise the boys as the only father figure they would know for several years.   The story of his trips to teach me guitar only scratches the surface of the kind of sacrifice that he made to help his daughter with the two snotty, ornery kids that she so proudly took with her everywhere.

My “papi” was grandfather, father, disciplinarian, story-teller, teacher, jokester, and a lot of other things all rolled into one.  He used to sneak me out of the back of church during the long church services that my grandmother took us to on Sunday.  My “lela” was so busy with what she was doing in church she never noticed.   There was a bar across the street, and he would take me in there, sit me on a stool, and buy me a Coke while he enjoyed an adult beverage.  About 15 minutes before services were over, we would cross the street again, go sit in the back, and he would tell me – “no digas nada.”  (don’t say anything)    I never did.  How my very strict Pentecostal grandmother never smelled the beer on him is beyond me.

We have all heard about the ying and the yang, right?  That was my grandfather and grandmother.   Don’t get me wrong, my grandmother loved me just as much.   But while my grandmother would fuss at us for running around, my grandfather would tell her in his own quiet gently way – “leave them alone, they’re kids.”  For every bit of impatience my grandmother had, he had patience.   For every reverent moment my grandmother had, he had his little irreverent moments.

I know for a fact that several times growing up that we were able to have food on the table only because my grandfather would come over and sneak my mom some money.   He set up a little candy and snack store at this house on Pascual Orozco street to help make ends meet on his little pension.   Somehow I know that some of the profits found their way to my mom’s pocket to help pay the bills.   Those profits could have been a lot larger if my brother and I didn’t eat so much of the inventory.

It is incredible that at the most desperate times of my life my grandfather comes to me in my dreams.  At the lowest point in my life, when I was alone, my kids were 600 miles away, and I was facing an important medical procedure, I dreamt that he came to see me to tell me the most consoling words I have ever felt – “mijo, everything will be alright.”

My grandfather never got to meet my daughters.  Given the love he had for my mom I know he would have been crazy about them.   I would have loved for him to meet my wife.  My wife, even before we married, helped me care for my grandmother in her last year of life, so she got to know her well.  How I wish she had known what a great man he was.   He would have loved my wife as well.

In my life I have been very lucky to have family that has cared for me and shown me how to be a good person.   My mom showed me how to be a good parent.  My grandmother, in her own wonderful way, showed me how to have faith and appreciation for the spiritual things in my life.  I am a grandfather, with an 11-year-old grandson and my new little 2 month old granddaughter.  I can only hope to be half the kind of grandfather that this wonderful old man was to me.

Random reflections on a day of thanks

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Back in September I wrote about the transformation that one goes through in becoming a grandparent.  I noticed the profound effect it had on my dad, and I wondered what the addition of a special little girl in my life would do to me.   Well,  I don’t need to wonder anymore.  After a long, exhausting 24 hour period, Chloe Angeline Harlow came into our lives at 3:03 a.m. on Saturday, November 19, 2011.    I say it was exhausting because we drove up to Round Rock expecting for my daughter Jessica to be induced at 5 a.m.      When we arrived at the hospital, Jessica was not there.   The hospital said she was a no-show and  I sat there wondering what had happened.    It was then that I felt my phone vibrate and noticed that I received a message at 4 a.m. that the induction was postponed because of all the active labor cases they had.

We waited at Jessica’s house for the hospital to call.   and waited.  and waited.    Finally, after several calls and complaints we were told to go to the hospital at 4 p.m.    Everyone loaded up and booked it to the hospital, only to be told when we got there that between the time we got the call and we arrived at the hospital (about 20 minutes) they had received 4 women in labor.  So again, we waited.

Finally, at about 6 the doctor came in, told Jess that they would start an IV with pitocin, wait about an hour, and then break her water.     The nurse came in a while later with the pitocin, but noticed there was no IV stand.    Out she went to get an IV stand.    One hour later, another nurse showed up with the IV stand, left it in the room, and left.  After another hour passed, the doctor came in expecting everything to be up and running, and there was the medication on the counter, and the IV in the other part of the room.    To say that the doctor was pissed would be major understatement.   Needless to say, after the doctor’s firm assertion that they get off their butts and get things done, the charge nurse came in and took care of things herself.   This would be the start of the final hours of waiting for little Chloe to enter the world.

This was really a wonderful time.  Jess had her hubby,  mom and stepdad, her in-laws, her brother-in-law and wife, my wife and I all around while she started this little adventure of hers. Additionally,  Erica was able to join us from Colombia via Skype to share this with her little sister.

Time was a bit of an issue because if she did not deliver by 6 a.m. I was not going to be able to be there.   I had been scheduled for almost a year to make a presentation to a group of adult Scout leaders at a training conference.    I had already changed the schedule of the conference around by swapping with another presenter from Friday to Saturday.    I still had to drive 90 minutes back to San Antonio to make the presentation.  At about 2 a.m.  the course director called and told me not to worry about it, if I was not done I did not need to come back, he would have someone cover my presentation.

The last two hours were spent in the waiting room while Jess and Ian and Margie (Jess’ mom) stayed back in the delivery suite.  Sometime after 3 Margie came out to tell us that Chloe was here, that Jess had done wonderfully, and that baby and mom were doing well.   She showed us a couple of preliminary pics that we could enjoy until such time as we could all go back to see her.

Something changed in me that morning.   I love my wife with all my heart.  My daughters mean the world to me.  Over the last 15 years I have developed a lasting love for the other new kids in my life, who I consider as mine as much as if I had sired them myself.     When I held Chloe, however, a depth of feeling I had never had just enveloped me.   Here in my arms was the product of the love that both mom and dad had received in all their lives, and the love they had for each other.   Her swollen little eyes and beautiful sweet little face could not have been any more beautiful.    I was (and always will be) madly in love with this little bundle that was wrapped up so tightly in her blankets.

So on this day that I reflect on the blessing in my life, I have a wonderful little girl that makes me smile.  Speaking of smiles, I am thankful that my dental surgery went well.    Considering the fact that they yanked out all my remaining teeth, screwed 8 titanium implants into my jaw, and then attached my new bridges all in one morning and afternoon, I came out of it in pretty good shape.    Pain was not as bad as I thought, and I quit taking the Hydrocodone after the first day and relied on just ibuprofen.    Although I am just dying to bite into a thick juicy steak, or just simply eat a nice warm fluffy tortilla, I know that taking my time and slowly working my way up to more solid foods will be worth it in the end.

What a difference.  I am not embarrassed to smile, and although I still whistle a little when I talk, at least I can make myself understood.  I gave that scout presentation 10 days after the surgery.   I am amazed at how quickly I am healing.    The most important thing is that I can take pictures with my little one with my choppers showing and not be afraid of what those ugly old teeth looked like.

Life has been pretty good to me.  A lot of people wonder how I can say that considering all that I have gone through in my life.   Well you know, I am still standing.  Life may have knocked me down, but I kept getting up.    Half the battle in life is getting back up after being knocked down.    Many years ago I heard G. Gordon Liddy say something after being released from prison.   He paraphrased Friedrich Nietzsche, saying “Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger.’   The original quote is “Out of life’s school of war: what does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”  Either way you look at it, life has made me stronger.   A rose-bush grows that much stronger and beautiful after undergoing an occasional pruning.      I have had my share of pruning from life, but I am still kicking.    For that I am truly grateful.

 

The older I get, the smarter my dad seems to be

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When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. — Mark Twain

As I crawled out from under the truck after fixing the brakes on my truck, I simply had to repeat what I have repeated a number of times – “thanks Dad.” This happens on a remarkable number of occasions – fixing a leaky faucet, laying ceramic tile in the kitchen, picking out good l umber at Home Depot. This isn’t because he was there to help me, but because he taught me how to do it.

Unfortunately, I can’t say it to his face anymore. My dad has been gone almost 6 years, but every day I do something, or say something, or react to something that reminds me of my dad. You see, I had a father, AND I had a dad. My father was the man involved in my conception, but my dad was the man who raised me.

When my mom and dad first married in 1966, it was quite a difference for my brother and I. My mom raised us as a single mom from the time I was about 2 1/2 and my brother was a newborn. The only male influence we had in our lives was my wonderful grandfather Arturo Rivera, who will be the topic of a later blog. The joke in the family was that my dad dated my brother and I more than he dated my mom, and it wasn’t far from the truth. While my mom worked, my dad took us out to look at cars so we could figure out how to put together the model cars that he had bought us. They got married less than a month after he first came to have dinner with us, and stayed married to my mom for 35 years.

But I digress. I thank my dad because he had the temerity to make my brother and I work around the house on Saturdays while the rest of our friends played. He bought old cars and brought them home, and Art (my brother) and I would help him fix them up. On Saturdays we went and emptied out scrap barrels of metal used in sheet metal shops and sold it at a scrap yard. He found and collected old copper and copper wire which we sold for scrap as well. I can’t tell you the number of times he took us out in the middle of the desert where we made a huge pile of copper wire, poured gasoline on it and set it on fire to melt of the insulation, waited for it to cool, and took it in to sell.

The thing was, my mom and dad did all right for themselves. We were never really poor (at least not after my dad came into the picture). He did not do it because we needed the money. He did it to “teach” my brother and I some important lessons.

The house my mom and dad bought in the Lower Valley in El Paso had a pool in the back yard. It was not working, and it was not practical to fix up.   As a family we decided to fill it in. Guess who filled it in?  Yep, my little brother and I spent a lot of weekends with a sledgehammer knocking down the walls and filling it in.

You know I am sure that these days someone would have turned my dad in to CPS and accused him of child abuse. What my dad was doing was not child abuse — it was his way of showing love to us. These two snotty, ornery kids that came as a package deal with the woman that he absolutely adored could have easily been ignored, mistreated, or worse. But he did what no one could have expected him to do. He loved us as his own.

Sure he was tough on us. Sure there were times I would have liked to just tell him to back off. What he was trying to do, though, was get us ready for our lives in the real world. The world where you have to earn respect, not expect it. Where you have to work for a living, not expect it to be handed to you. Where you help out a neighbor without expecting anything in return.

Did I love what we were doing? NO! Did I appreciate the life lessons we were picking up at the time? HELL NO!

As my dad got older, he called me a lot to ask me to help him with things. At times I wondered why he was asking me to do things that I knew that he could do by himself. With my busy life I have to admit that at times I was probably irritated that he was “needy.” Boy do I miss those “needy” phone calls. My dad was pretty lost after my mom passed away in 2002. What a perfect time it would have been for me to pay him back for all he did.

It’s not like I never thanked him. It’s also not like we did not spend any time together. More than ever I just wish he was around for me to show him how much he taught me.

One last lesson taught and learned by Art and myself. When my dad passed, Art said that my dad had taught him a lot. He mentioned all those things that I talked about, but he said the main thing my dad taught him was how to love.

Notice that I never called him my stepdad, just like he never called us his stepsons. We were his boys. He was proud of his boys. He talked to his friends about his boys.

No, my dad was not perfect, but he taught us almost perfectly what it was to love.
For that I can never thank him enough.

New Choppers

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Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he’s got it all.
James Brown

Oh, well, one out of two isn’t bad.   From the time I can remember I have struggled with my choppers.  As a young teenager the dentist pulled out one of my front teeth to “straighten out” my smile.   It didn’t work.

In my late teens, I dove into a pool, didn’t pull up in time, and drove my front tooth into the bottom of the pool and chipped it off.  My mom took me to a dentist in Juarez, Mexico and he put in a crown.    It only lasted a few short years before it discolored.     After I moved back to El Paso and opened my law practice, I worked out a trade deal with a dentist and traded dental work for legal work.       Boy did he get the short end of the stick.  He put in a great crown that to this day looks absolutely awesome.

Unfortunately, that is the only tooth that has survived years of a constant battle with teeth that chipped, broke, or just rotted away.  No matter how hard I tried to keep up with the flossing and brushing, one by one my teeth kept falling apart.    Little by little, the one thing that everyone said that they liked about me, my smile, went away.  I was just too embarrassed to smile because of the horrible looking teeth that surrounded that one beautiful looking crown.    It even began to affect me at work because I noticed that I would try to keep my mouth from opening too much while I taught.   Lots of mumbling, apparently.

All this time my lovely wife has constantly told me that I did not have to suffer like this.  We constantly would hear commercials about dental clinics that would take care of this for me, but I kept putting it off saying that there were other things I needed to take care of first.  Part of it was fear of the unknown, part of it was not wanting to hear the lecture from the dentist about letting my teeth get to that point.    It’s not like I purposely let my teeth get that way.

The options were not pretty.   I saw my mom and dad struggle with dentures, and I saw how old it made them look when they had their teeth pulled and they waited for their new teeth to come in.   My mom and dad both would seldom wear both sets of teeth because of the pain, discomfort and inconvenience.  I just could not see me doing that.    Dental implants are a solution, but most of them require a full 6 months of healing before they place the final crown.  Taking care of all my teeth would have required several years of work at an enormous cost.   The only other option, I thought, was to let things go as they were.   That really was not an option.  Besides being unwilling to smile, it also affected the way I eat.

Anyway, in October my wife convinced me to go to a presentation from a clinic that specializes in implants.  They will remove all the bad teeth, place implants, and give you some temporary bridges the same day.  Permanent teeth go in 6 months after the implants fully heal.  Not cheap, but well worth the investment.  After a 3D cat scan, I saw exactly how bad my situation was.  Not only were my teeth failing, but I had some serious infections that could have permanently ruined my heart, kidney, liver, etc.  It also explained the constant sinus infections I had that seemed to last all year long.    The extreme fatigue and general feeling of malaise also could be attributed to it.     One good thing – the doctor told me that I was fighting a losing battle with my teeth.  Apparently some people have a genetic disposition to harbor bacteria and infection in their teeth.  I was one of them.

So, on November 9th I go in for my new smile.  It is going to take some adjustments.  For the first 3 months I have to eat nothing but soft foods while my implants heal.  Of course there will be some pain, discomfort and bruising after the surgery, but in the end, I will be able to do what I always have liked to do – SMILE.   It’s worth every penny.

I miss you dear friend

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Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are  never, ever the same.– Anonymous

Two years ago on October 6th I had to say goodbye to a very special friend.  When I was newly divorced, he was my companion and kept me from being lonely.  When my daughters moved 600 miles away from El Paso to San Antonio, he consoled me.  When I was critically ill, he sat at the foot of my bed for hours making sure I was OK.  He shared the good times with me and endured the tough times.  He helped me raise kids, provided them entertainment, and all the time showed constant unconditional love.  What a friend huh?

But as with all lives, they cannot last forever.  My friend was well over 100 years old when he drew his last breath.  He was almost blind, he was arthritic, and started having seizures.  In his last illness I basically spoon fed him, cleaned him up after his messes, and just held him in my arms to enjoy the last bit of comfort of his presence.   As I stroked his face and watch him draw his last breath, I could not have helped but wonder – Am I doing the right thing?  Should I let the doctors give him whatever medications he needed to keep him going?  Or was that just selfish?  Did he not deserve to die with dignity, and not covered in his own filth?  Can I just let him go like this?    As I drove away from the hospital after his passing I cried big old sobs like I hadn’t in years.  I knew that there would be a longing in my heart that would not be easily filled.  That seemed like the longest drive I can remember.  My wife Molly was at my side as we watched all this unfold, he had been a huge part of her life, and “our life” as well.

I know the quote I listed at the beginning of this blog talks about “some people” and not specifically about a dog.   Anyone that knew Viking thought he was partially human anyway.    He sat on the sofa with his butt on the seat and this front paws on the floor like a human.  He watched TV with the rest of us, not just sitting there enjoying our company but actually watching the screen and barking at the animals.  As a puppy (which for him was the first 7 years of his life) he stole food (goldfish crackers, chicken wings, pistachios and an entire jar of peanut butter) like any other hungry kid or teenager would do.    He could sleep for hours or stay up most of the night when my girls had a sleepover. 

Yep, Viking was a true friend.  He was someone who I could rely on for loving me despite all my faults and human inadequacies.  He didn’t just leave a footprint in my heart, he stomped a big old hole.    I miss you a lot my dear old friend. 

“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece  of nature.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

To Hair is Human

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I graduated from law school when I was 23 years old.   Because I finished so early, I already had the disadvantage of looking like a little kid, basically the legal equivalent of Doogie Howser, M.D.  (a reference too old for many of you.)  Interview after interview I watched as I gave all the right answers, but got blank stares back from the interviewer.  Surely they were thinking, “Does this guy even shave yet?”   Quite honestly, I did not have to shave every day.

Because of all the Mestizo blood in me on my mother’s side, facial hair is not high on my list of accomplishments.   Neither was hair on my legs, arms, chest, or other parts of my body.   So my misguided solution to looking older was to grow a mustache.    What a pitiful sight it was to see the little hairs sprouting from my lip.  I see people like my son Sam that could probably grow a full beard in one afternoon, and it took me the better part of a month to get it to look like something other than a dirty upper lip.

So what is the big deal about that?  If you know me or have seen my picture, you know that I now sport a full beard.  It’s  gray, of course, but it IS a full beard.   It took me a long time to grow it, and I have had at least a full beard or goatee since I was 40.   The reason I blog about this is simple.   Now that I am moving along the time continuum, I find that hair grows where I don’t want it to.

Where in the heck did that hair on the underside of my wrist come from?   Who the heck is the old man in the mirror with the Andy Rooney eyebrows?   Holy crap, those aren’t  boogers in my nose, they are long, ugly gray hairs!    When did I sign up for that?

My fondest wish is that I could stop right there with this disgusting topic of hair growth.  But I can’t.   Driving to work the other day, my wife Molly said, “Are those hairs growing out of your ear?”  Oh how cruel the gods of aging seem to be.  The one thing that I had hoped would never happen had in fact occurred.   Ironically, Molly and I had that discussion just a few days earlier.  I was telling her how we used to kid my dad about braiding the hair that grew out of his ears and now here I was suffering from that same old man curse.  Where were all those hair follicles when I needed them, and who told them to move into unoccupied areas of my body?

I  am not totally ungrateful.  As I see more and more of my friends that I grew up with, at least I can honestly say that I don’t have the super wide part in the middle of my head.  I don’t have to consider shaving my head to hide the fact that I am balding.   The very genes that kept me from growing facial hair also kept me from losing it on top of my head.  As a good friend told me, it is better for your hair to go gray than to just go away.

I am grateful for little favors.

The Grandparent Transformation

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As I walked in the front door of my parent’s house 20 years ago, my dear departed mom told me to be really quiet and follow her to the back room.   I had no idea what was going on, after all I was just there to pick up my two daughters that had spent the afternoon with their grandparents.  My mom continued to hush me and told me to sneak a peek out the back window at my dad and the girls.  Wow! was I in for a surprise.   There in the back yard was my dad, wearing what looked like a tutu around his waist, doing a  hula dance with Erica and Jessica.

This is the same man who was too embarrassed to dance with my mom at my wedding.  This is the same man who had little time to play silly games with this sons because we had “too much work to do.”  The same man who thought that the world of music stopped at the death of Hank Williams was dancing with my daughters to some silly 80’s song on the radio.  (I know that saying silly and 80’s music in the same sentence is redundant.)

What on earth happened?  What did they do with my dad?  Who is this imposter in the tutu?  He most certainly is not my dad.  From talking to many of my friends, I know now that this is not an isolated incident.  Becoming a grandparent changes people.  Usually drastically.    My mom and dad both worked long hard hours as we grew up.  My mom had little time for cooking big fancy meals, but what she made was filling and nutritious.   We learned early on that “this is not a restaurant, you eat what I fix you or you don’t eat!”    This rule echoed in my mind as I watched my parents take orders from my girls for the special soup they made for them whenever they wanted.   Darn, where was that when I was a kid?

Then I realized that I am slowly going down that path now.  I have done a lot of camping and fishing with the Boy Scouts over the last several years.  I have done my share of fishing with the scouts and had pretty much exhausted my enjoyment with that activity.   This summer, while my grandson Trey was in town, I went fishing with him, and stayed out with him for a lot longer than I expected.   Even when he no longer wanted to bait the hook and just wanted to cast out an empty hook into the water, I had a blast  just watching him do it.  When a fellow fisherman left and gave us his box of worms, Trey dropped all interest in the fishing pole and just wanted to play with the worms.   Did I lose interest or patience?  Absolutely not.  I just sat back and enjoyed watching this little boy have the time of his life while I sat in the hot sun sweating like a little pig.

What causes this kind of change?  Well, I think that there is a lot of things.      Grandparent love is not restricted by  parental constraints. A Grandparent gets to have all the fun and not have to worry about all that discipline stuff.    When my dad would not take the time to play “silly” games with us, he was training us in the art of a good work ethic.  He did not have to teach that to my girls, that was my job. As a result, he got to open up that part of his heart that he kept closed.    The older I get, the smarter and smarter my parents seem to get in my mind.

I am expecting that Chloe, my granddaughter that is due in November, will get a lot of that unvarnished Grandpa attention.  I know that she can count on having a grandpa that is ready to spoil her rotten.   I should probably be fitted for a tutu.

Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.  ~Welsh Proverb

I have a photographic memory – but I am out of film.

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The Skippers name in Gilligan’s Island is Jonas Grumby (his character’s name).  The four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are Raphael, Michaelangelo, Leonardo and Donatello.  My phone number from the time I was in fifth grade till I moved out of my parents house was 915-778-2252.  I can tell you the first words my former law associate Richard Contreras ever said to me when I met him in fifth grade.

But where the heck are the keys to my truck?   What was it I told my wife Molly I would do before I came and picked her up from work?  Did I really leave my folder full of papers on top of my truck before driving off today?     My mind can recall amazing details about trivial stuff (I dare you to play Trivial Pursuit), but I no longer remember simple things that I should.   Thank goodness my wife is here or I would probably forget to feed the dogs.  .

They say that there are three things that go with old age.  The first is memory, and I can’t remember what the other two were.  Thank goodness for smart phones (which I still occasionally forget at home).   When I had one of the first PDA’s, a new generation Palm Pilot, it sat on my desk at home 5 or 6 days out of 7 because I would forget to bring it with me.  Molly bought Ginkgo Biloba to help with memory, and you guessed it –  I would forget to take it.

Now there are many of you that know me that say I have always been a bit absent-minded – and I concede the point.    But forgetting the names of people I have known for years?    Having that word sit on the tip of your tongue just taunting you and not being able to spit it out?     I often compose a text and forget to hit the send button.

One of the biggest fears I have in life is dementia or Alzheimer’s.    I have seen people just disappear with those horrible diseases.   Because I keep “forgetting” things, I finally brought it to the attention of my family physician.  You know what that arrogant “Doogie Howser” looking doctor called what I had?   Age Accumulation.   He says that it is a natural progression of aging and that I should not worry about it.  Gee, I wonder if he makes me pay up front because I might “forget” to pay before I leave?

All kidding aside, my doctor and others I have talked to says that the adage “use it or lose it” is very appropriate in this instance.  So I make an effort to resist just vegetating in front of the TV and I read a lot, still try to do the occasional crossword puzzle, and study presidential history (still a nerd).   My hopes and prayers are that it will be enough to ward off my worries.

(I am adding this paragraph 10 days after I wrote the above.  When no one had commented on this article I was a bit surprised.   Well surprise, surprise, surprise.    This genius forgot to hit the publish button.)