Solo Performances

There are things I’ve done that I doubt anyone else has had the pleasure, misfortune or personal idiosyncrasies to have on their personal inventory of life accomplishments

Ladies and gentlemen, things I may be the only person in the world who has ever done.

·      Attend three Doobie Brothers concert and fall asleep during each one.  The first two were in the early ‘70’s, so I actually ‘passed out’ rather than fell asleep thanks to a preconcert routine of beer and screwdrivers.  The third one was in 2003—about 30 years later--and there was no doubt I was simply asleep.  I was almost 50 and it was after 10:00 p.m. 

·      Deliver an impromptu eulogy.  For a man I’d never met.  Long story; short eulogy.

·      I played golf as a teenager at the Mayport (Florida) Naval Station Golf Course.  There were three par-three holes.  Once in a tournament I played those three holes in a cumulative five strokes.  I’ll leave the math to you.

·      I have this habit of crushing aluminum cans with my right hand once I finish drinking whatever was inside.  I do this for two reasons: (1) If anyone wonders who left an empty aluminum can on the counter, on the table, etc. and it wasn’t crushed, they’ll know it wasn’t me, and (2) as a reminder to myself that I’ve finished drinking it (please reference earlier comment regarding sleeping through China Grove, Long Train Running, etc.).

·      Quit drinking tequila after tasting it for the first time.  Why?  Simple math, actually. First time = 15 shots.

·      Drink an entire bottle of Manischewitz Blackberry Wine right before taking a physical examination.  You see, I knew the nurse would be drawing blood from my arm and I have this incredible fear of needles…  Incidentally, the results indicated an extraordinarily high sugar level in my blood.  Go figure. 

·      Survive a root canal without any anesthetic.  You see, I knew the dentist would be injecting Novocain in my gums and I have this incredible fear of needles…  (Please note: If you want to get an idea what it felt like, chew on a large piece of aluminum foil and be sure it comes in lots of contact with any of your teeth with fillings.  Then stab a fork in your gums.) 

·      Catch someone else’s vomit in my bare hands.  Two family members from two generations in the same house in virtually the same spot: My son Justin (circa: 1990) and his son Krischan (circa: so recent I can still envision it in the palms of my hands!).

·      Average less than six hours of sleep daily for 35 years.  My next book will be published this fall.  It’s called The Edge of Exhaustion and chronicles my quest for a personal ‘Grand Slam’ of the Major Ultras: The JFK 50, the Badwater Ultramarathon, Western States and the Comrades Marathon.  It will help explain things, like how I managed to run as many miles as I did while maintaining a full time job and raising two boys, as well as why I can’t stay awake through an entire Doobie Brothers concert.   

·      Begin every day with a run.  Focus on the words ‘begin’ and ‘every day.’  Since November 30, 1978 to be exact.  Now focus on ‘run’ and realize the word is interchangeable with jog, walk, stumble, crawl and on occasion, drag my sorry a**.

·      Have five felines stick to them like glue.  This happens every time I’m away from home for a couple of days.  Our cats must really miss the hand that feeds them, the lap that comforts them and the person who rakes their litter boxes every stinking single morning.  Amendment: I may be the only person with five felines sticking to them like clue who isn’t (a) a female or (b) a lion tamer. 

·      Write every day for an entire year.  The year was 2013.  You can find everything I wrote in My Life: Everything but BUY THE BOOK (Parts 1 and 2).  Three hundred and sixty-five chapters in all: One written on each day of the year.  If I had to do it all over again I might have divided everything into four books rather than two since there were almost as many pages (1,040) in them as there are in War and Peace (1,296).  However, if you are looking for more of the backstory behind anything you’ve read in this story, rest assured you won’t find it in anything Tolstoy ever wrote.

·      Meet Alice Cooper.  OK, I realize lots of people have met Alice Cooper but I wanted to make sure everyone knew I MET ALICE COOPER!  How cool is that?!?

·      Sing Billy Joel’s Just the Way You Are and getting all the lyrics right.  While hammered.  Company Christmas party 1983, to be exact.  One year later I sang the Commodores Still.  Messed up on a few lyrics on that one but it was my own damn fault: I tried singing it sober.   

 

Number 26 - Fair Weather

In the middle of May you wouldn’t expect to find temperatures in the mid-to-high 60’s with a cool breeze thrown in for good measure to keep things comfortable.  Maybe if you lived in San Diego, perhaps.  But here in Georgia it’s more likely to be warm and muggy at this time of the year, if not downright hot and sticky.  But today was one of those days with just the right combination---lazy Sunday afternoon, great weather and wanting to take it easy after a difficult week at work—for me to say ‘yes’ when Cindy asked me if I wanted to attend the annual art fair in neighboring Fayetteville.  After all, I’ve lived right next door to it for 24 years and never attended and besides, admission was free.  What did I have to lose?

The very first booth Cindy and I visited offered a variety of stained glass ornaments.  Cindy’s eyes were immediately drawn to a stained glass peace sign, the peace sign being her Achilles Heel of Must Have’s.  ‘$25,’ I thought to myself.  ‘Could be worse.’  Then she added ‘I want a stained glass window in my house someday.’  There would be no peace sign today, presumably so Cindy could use it as leverage down the road when she bought an entire window made of stained glass.

The next couple of booths featured paintings that looked like they may very well have been painted by me, who has the artistic abilities of a four-year old armed with a tray of finger paint and a box of Twinkies.  That is, if I ever took the time to paint parakeets and ballet slippers (I haven’t).

It wasn’t until we reached our fifth booth that the little plastic card in my wallet was called into action.  A husband-and-wife team were selling (her) photographs converted to (his) framed prints, and they (the art, not the husband and wife) were beautiful.  (Then again, the husband and wife may have been beautiful; after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and since you weren’t able to beheld them, I really can’t say if you might find them beautiful so forget I even mentioned it and just know their art was beautiful.  At least in my eyes.  The parakeet and ballet slippers I mentioned earlier?  They couldn’t possibly be considered beautiful…in anyone’s eyes.)    Lots of the photographs were taken in Savannah, and I asked what else she had besides what was on display.  ‘Boats, lakes, birds, alligators, cobblestone streets…’  I stopped her in her tracks.  ‘You had me at alligators,’ I said as I butchered a line from Jerry Maguire.  (I collect all things University of Florida, to include anything featuring an alligator and as you will soon see, anything featuring the school colors of orange and blue.  Yes, it is my Achilles Heel of Must Have’s.)  She actually pulled out three photographs of alligators in a nature preserve near Savannah.  It took me a solid 15 minutes before I finally settled on the photo of an alligator’s head slightly above water with an orange reflection of sunlight in its eyes and a strip of green algae on its head.  Cindy added a photo for friends of ours (a Christmas present bought seven months early!).  The floodgates (my wallet) were now officially open for business.

We ran into Ed, our family dentist (and also a graduate of the University of Florida, a factor that may or may not have been the reason we selected him to be our family dentist 24 years ago) who thought we selected the best of the three alligator prints.  I noticed Ed was overdressed for an outdoor art festival.  Then again, Ed is the kind of person who would wear a suit and tie to special events; the midnight premier of a movie, for example or the grand opening of a new Hardees.  (Ed would appreciate me giving him a hard time about his attire.  I do it every time he’s wearing a tie while drilling on my teeth like there’s gold buried in them.  Besides, with my propensity for dental work I’m pretty sure I’ve paid for at least one of his son’s college tuitions over the years.)

I safely maneuvered my way around the next seven or eight booths—the way a soldier might navigate through a field of land mines—until Cindy found a booth featuring handmade metal jewelry.  Well, maybe not so much because of the jewelry but rather because it was designed by a woman from Turkey.  (Our good friends Ferit and Gizem are from Istanbul.)  Truth be known her designs were pretty striking, and I enjoyed talking to her husband who actually made each piece (or as he told me, ‘she designs, I grind’).  I have to admit her husband was quite the character.  A few samples:

·       We live in Alpharetta but we also have small homes in Florida and Istanbul.  We don’t have any money but we have a lot of homes.

·       I played a round of golf at St. Andrews.  I parred the last two holes.  I have no idea what I did on the rest of the course.  I still have the scorecard, but the first 16 holes are blank. 

·       I rode in a taxi in Istanbul.  The driver went straight through a red light.  I asked him why.  He said because he didn’t see anything coming. 

I dodged a few more land mines until we stumbled across a pottery tent.  The man was from Florida and displayed some really attractive creations.  In other words, the man was a dual threat.  Four serving platters later we were on our way looking for our next victim. 

It didn’t take long.  Another talented photographer was directly in our path and there was no way around it.  And by ‘it’ I mean a photograph of random blue objects on an orange background (I warned you earlier about all things orange and blue).  The blue objects were pieces of paint and the orange background was the rusted hood of an old car the photographer stumbled across in the woods.  Time to put another notch in my wallet, because this photo was mine!

Throughout the afternoon we saw more than one booth featuring photographs of the photogenic Starr’s Mill, a favorite of local shutterbugs that is (a) about four miles from my house and (b) the centerpiece of our living room, a magnificent image of the mill with a perfect duplicate of it mirrored on the surface of the lake on which it is built.  None of the photos could compare to ours, a gift from my the lens of my talented friend Al last Christmas.   Note: Cindy discovered a photo of another mill in one of the tents and said it ‘looked familiar.’  I said it was the old Rex Mill.  She looked on the back of the photo and sure enough, it was Rex Mill.  She asked me how I knew.  ‘Probably because I ran by it 3,000 or so times during the 10 years we lived in Rex.’  (Note: NOT an exaggeration; perhaps even an understatement).  Moving on…

Almost done.  If we can just make it past this one last vendor…TOO LATE!  Cindy made her way towards one last jewelry tent the way a moth makes its way towards a light.  The only difference is the moth doesn’t have a wallet. Cindy did.  Mine.

Final assessment: Two hours, 60 vendors, three photographs, four pieces of pottery, two pieces of jewelry and the opportunity to talk to a lot of really nice people.  It was actually a pretty good deal since it didn’t cost anything to get in. 

Then again, it did cost me almost $400 to leave.      

Melissa - My Champion

I went to Warm Springs one hot summer nigh in June to run a race sponsored by the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institution for Rehabilitation.  The Institution works with 5,000 people annually with various disabilities.  The race was to raise money for the seated and mobility clinic; in other words, children and young adults confined to wheelchairs.

Prior to the 10K race, a shorter race of 2K was held for the youngsters who were clients of the clinic.  I watched one little girl who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old nor weigh more than sixty pounds push the tires on her wheelchair so hard that she almost won the female division of the race.  She finished a close second to a young lady who was much older, bigger and stronger than she was.  But I promise you she didn’t go down without a fight, struggling so hard that on that final uphill with everything she had in hopes of passing that one last competitor.

After all the wheelchair-bound children had completed their race, the ‘able-bodied,’ as the starter called them, competed in theirs.  The field wasn’t too deep, and I managed to with the Men’s Masters division.

At the awards ceremony, trophies were awarded to the winners of the wheelchair race first.  ‘Melissa,’ as I discovered her name to be, was called to the stage to receive her award.  Melissa wheeled up the ramp to the stage to receive her second place trophy, six inches of metal and marble which made her break out in a big smile.  I noticed her mother in the crowd with a smile even bigger than her daughter’s.

Afterwards, awards were presented to the ‘able-bodied,’ and I was called to the stage to receive my trophy which was – and I am not exaggerating – three feet tall!  It made me think about the effort I put out for my race, and then about the effort Melissa had put out for hers, and I realized who the TRUE champion was.  I looked where Melissa and her mother had been in the audience but didn’t see them.  I went to some of the people in that vicinity and they told me Melissa and her mother had left.  Fortunately they were able to point me in the direction they had headed.

I found them just as the mother had gotten Melissa seated in the back of their van, and noticed Melissa was still holding onto her trophy for dear life.  I introduced myself and said I had won the Master’s competition, and asked Melissa if she would do me the honor of accepting MY trophy, as HER effort that evening had been much greater than mine and that she was the real champion.  Melissa broke into the biggest smile I have ever, and I do mean EVER seen and she immediately pried the engraved plate off of her trophy, did the same to mine, and placed HER plate on her new trophy!  I felt honored that Melissa accepted, and I knew by the tears running down her mother’s face that she was OK with it as well.

I asked Melissa if I would see her at the race next year, and she told me she would be and that she was going to win a trophy for me!

And do you know what?  I’ve already selected a spot on the mantel for it.

Better Left Undone

    Better Left Undone

Now that I’ve reached the midpoint of doing 50 things I’ve never done before I turn 60, I thought it might be a good time to mention a few assorted and sundry things I still haven’t done as I close in on the six-month anniversary of my 59^th birthday (let me know if I’ve lost you already). 

So, in no particular order here is a list of things I’ve avoided doing at any time in my life, thereby making the world a better place to live:

·       Split an atom.  After that unfortunate chemistry experiment back in 11^th grade, I’m fairly certain attempting to split an atom would be very irresponsible of me.  And by ‘irresponsible’ I actually mean ‘having catastrophic implications.’

·       Tap dance, clog or perform a pirouette.  After all…why would I?    

·       Inhale helium and talk like Donald Duck.

·       Tame a shrew.

·       Make a balloon animal.  I did make one that looked like a snake or maybe a large worm but I was told it didn’t count as a legitimate balloon animal because it didn’t make that squeaky sound while I was making it.

·       Wear anything red.  (I discount maroon underwear as it is not technically ‘red.’  Also because no one should technically see my maroon underwear if I did in fact wear maroon underwear.  A moot point, actually since I don’t wear maroon underwear.  Maroon is just too close to red for my liking.  Apparently you weren’t paying attention when I mentioned earlier I didn’t wear anything red.)

·       Use a protractor. 

·       Eat caviar, read a romance novel or run for political office. 

·       Learn how to play any member of the woodwind, brass or string families of musical instruments.  If I remember correctly my musical talent peaked when I was in fifth grade and I learned how to play the snare drum. 

·       Appreciate, understand or laugh at British humor. 

·       Pin the tail on the donkey.  I did try to pin several ‘gas leaks’ on a few of our cats, however.  No one ever bought it, but I did try.

·       Get into a fistfight with any of the stars of The Expendables, although I did b*tch slap one of the production assistants who was in front of me at the express lane at Publix with more than 10 items (she had 13).

·       Sneeze with my eyes open.

·       Speak German.  After working for a German company for more than 10 years and having ‘Ludwig’ as a last name you would think this would come naturally.  Truth be known I lived in Holland for three years as a youngster and took three years of French in high school.  Now when I count to 10 in a foreign language I’m pretty certain I’m doing so in three different languages.  Confusing?  Ciertamente!

·       Count my hair.   

·       Perform any repairs involving electricity.  I saw someone who ‘knew what he was doing’ fly across my kitchen after removing a kitchen outlet the stove was hooked up to and receiving a butt load of kilowatts. I’m smart enough to know I don’t know what I’m doing.  I’m also smart enough to know electricity is not always your friend. 

·       Give a telephone marketer a fighting chance.  Ask around; they’ll tell you I can be a real a**, especially the ones who call the minute I get home from work, the minute I hit the sack and lest I forget, God-have-mercy-on-the-souls of those who call me on my cell phone. 

·       Exceed the speed of light or solve a Rubik’s Cube.  I mention both since my chance of doing either one is about the same.  I may as well add ‘complement the University of Georgia’ while I’m at it.    

·       Spontaneously combust.