Reflection

Vapor Trails

2012-01-17T07:16:00.000-08:00

Vapor trails frame my childhood home. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I slept in my childhood home last night. I stopped there to catch a wink on my way back to Michigan from Cleveland. The house was dark and mostly empty when I arrived. No brothers or sister to be found. My mom had been gone nearly two years now. The only one left in the house was my dad, snoring loudly in his bedroom down the hall.

He told me he’d probably be in bed by the time I got there. He was right. I didn’t mind, I knew I’d be having breakfast with him at the local diner in the morning. His snoring didn’t bother me either. In fact, I kind of liked it. It was as soothing to me as the soft rumble of warm air being pushed out of the old furnace vent by the bedroom door.

The heat was a nice relief in the middle of a cold winter night. My old man kept the house a lot warmer than my mother did, that’s for sure. When we were kids, my younger brother used to joke that we could rent out our living room as a meat locker. He wasn’t far from the truth. My mother, who was in a perpetual state of menopause, kept the thermostat in our house routinely set somewhere between 58 and 60 degrees. Some days, if the light was just right, you could actually see your breath.

I chuckled at the thought as I took off my coat and threw it on the extra bed in what used to be the bedroom I shared with my brothers. My sister Dina had the other room to herself - puberty and gender pretty much guaranteed that arrangement, but I didn’t mind being crammed into a room with my brothers. We got along well because we all were equal parts mischievous and smart-ass

I pulled on my sweats and gazed around the room. It had changed quite a bit since the days when three adolescent boys occupied it. Gone were the posters of baseball players and rock bands. Much classier works of art had replaced them, all put there by my mother when she redecorated the room upon our departure. The bunk beds were gone too. In their place were two newer beds, both covered with fancy quilts and a menagerie of goofy country-crafty teddy bears. Hardly the teen-angst get-up my brothers and I had created, but still, the room felt pretty much the same.

The view out the picture window was just as I remembered. Facing north toward Lake Erie, the lights of the lime plant in Huron still shone as brightly through the crisp winter air as they did when I was a little boy and I was certain they were the lights at the North Pole.

The attic door in the corner of the room hadn't changed much either. It was still just as spooky as ever. So spooky that throughout my childhood, I made it a point to jam the end of my bed up against that door so it couldn’t be opened. When we were little kids, my mother informed us that a man had died on the roof while helping build the house back in 1926. To a kid that could mean only one thing – the man’s ghost was still in the house, more specifically, the attic! This meant there was no way in hell any of us kids were going to sleep at night unless the door to the attic was properly barricaded. Even now, as a 46-year-old grown man, that door was still giving me the willies.

My mom also put a bookcase in the room to try and make it look a tad more intellectual than it’s previous appearance. I’m not sure if a collection of books by Erma Bombeck and Dave Berry really did the trick, but it was a nice effort. More impressive to me was the fact that she had moved her album collection off the living room floor and into the bottom two shelves of the bookcase. The collection was nowhere near as massive as it had been in its heyday when it once threatened to take over the entire downstairs. My brother Lance, a professional musician, had sifted through and taken a fair amount of the collection, as had the rest of us, but it still was fairly large. It was nice that the albums were there, but somehow they seemed as out of place in the room as the kitschy teddy bears staring up at me from the bed.

It wasn’t all that late considering when I usually go to sleep, but I still crawled into bed – a much warmer, cozier bed than I ever remembered sleeping in before. Lights of passing cars crawled across the bedroom walls, just as they did when I was a kid. The sound of trucks downshifting on the Turnpike groaned in the distance. The furnace kicked on and off at perfect intervals and before long, I was sound asleep.

Crazy dreams of days past soon began to invade my slumber. Childhood dreams.

My body was lithe and my blonde hair flowed. I wore no eyeglasses, nor a shirt. My teeth were white and I was happy. I could run fast. Sometimes I could even fly. I was nice – a champion of all causes. Girlfriends from long ago began paying me visits. Not just one, but several, both real and imagined, until it became a full-blown lovers-of-the-past reunion. I even had dreams where I was talking about the dream I had just had while I was dreaming it - like a subconscious infinity mirror.

I was in houses I’d never been, meeting people I’d never met. One of my old college girlfriends introduced me to her husband. He was really short with a scarred face, and when I went to shake his hand, he extended a deformed, fleshy lobster claw in my direction, which I gladly shook. She had her hands full with three young kids, the youngest a two-year-old with curly blonde hair and a full set of grown up teeth speaking like a college professor, but wearing diapers.

Soon my dream shifted gears, now I was driving my car far out on a causeway in the middle of some lake, maybe Lake Erie. There was a bridge well off in the distance, but the road to the bridge was partially submerged in the water. Still, I pressed on. The wind picked up and began driving large waves over the road. I’d had this dream several times before, but not since my childhood. Now water was crashing into the side of my car, over the roof even. The car left the road and began to float, then sink. The clouds were incredible above me, a fiery mix of red and orange. I wasn’t scared, not even a little.

The next stop was a golf course that doesn’t exist. An impossibly difficult course I’d only ever played in my sleep. Three holes were all I’d ever gotten in, and tonight was no different. I played like a PGA pro for those three holes, but then, as always, the jig was up. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t tee off on the fourth hole. Suddenly doorframes were in my way and I couldn't get the ball to stop falling off the tee. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t complete my swing or even tee up the ball. Every golfer I know has this dream.

Next, I was back in school. My wife was there with me. It was the first time we’d met. She thought I was cute. I thought she was cute. It was strange because we were in middle school, but we were in our 20’s and we were way bigger and smarter than everyone else in the class, even the teachers. It was near the end of the school year and it was warm, so we skipped class and ran across the school lawn to a cemetery across the street, smiling and laughing the whole way. I felt no pain. My skin felt warm in the sun. I was young and carefree. I had no kids. I had no future. I had no past...

I woke up.

It was 7:30. My dad was already gone. I called him to see if he wanted to get some breakfast before I hit the road. He told me he was already waiting for me at the Main Street Café uptown. I made my bed, put the kitschy teddy bears back in their place and then got dressed.

My dreams stuck with me as I brushed a night’s worth or wool off my teeth and took a piss. Dreams always stick with me hard in the early morning – good or bad. When I was a kid I thought dreams were a glimpse into heaven. It was the unknown. A chance to visit places I’ve never been – a chance to do things I’ve never done, or could even do. I always liked dreams, even the ones that wake me up at 4 am in a cold sweat just as I’m about to get shot or stabbed. I feel alive when I’m dreaming. I like not having control of what’s going on. But these days I don’t sleep like I once did and my dreams aren’t what the used to be - except for last night, in my childhood home, when they were as clear and magical as ever.

I finished packing my things and headed outside. The sky was getting lighter, but the sun had yet to rise. Last night a million stars had occupied the space above our house. This morning, vapor trails crisscrossed that same space in an amazing pattern of man-made technological beauty. It dawned on me that a century ago, people weren’t lucky enough to see vapor trails in the morning light before they drifted off in the wind.

As I got in the car and drove uptown to meet my dad, my dreams became vapor trails too.

Technically Speaking

2011-11-16T08:20:00.000-08:00

Are we doomed? (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Technology is a great thing … except when it’s not. The question, I suppose, is trying to figure out when we’ve gone too far. Even harder is admitting it.

Personally, I should be livid with the advent of the digital camera, because even though I’m a professional photographer and I take advantage of all the advances in photo technology, the digital camera basically cost me my job.

I became expendable when it became clear that any Tom, Dick, or Harry off the street could buy a digital camera and take a good picture … when I say “good” I mean one that is properly exposed (let’s face it, there are a lot of folks out there toting around thousand dollar Canons and Nikons who still have no sense of light or composition).

What I’m saying is if photographers still had to buy film, meter the light, set the camera properly and then process the film and print the pictures in a darkroom … well, newspapers most likely would still be flourishing instead of disappearing, and it would actually take a fair amount of effort to get all that crap on the Internet (Bye-bye YouTube, so long Facebook!)

Then along came the technological advances in the cell phone market. Soon, it too could take properly exposed, high-resolution images - and videos! The number pad soon morphed into an actual keyboard so people could now text each other rather than … talk.

Huh?

Before long, it became a “smart phone" which pretty much does everything except act as an actual phone. I'm not sure if people actually even talk on them anymore, but they're a great way to connect to the Internet, play games, figure out where the hell you were, or tell you how much you should tip at a restaurant. We've become App crazy! (About the only thing a smart phone can't do, apparently, is save the life of the guy who invented it.) Now there is an App that lets you actually ask your phone a question and some woman named Siri will gladly answer it for you.

Really?

It got me to thinking. Maybe standing in line for hours on end to get the latest version of an iPhone isn’t the best use of our time - or our money. Maybe it’s time we stepped back a little. Maybe pull out a board game or an actual book instead of a Kindle. Let's give our thumbs a break for a while. Maybe even speak to each other face to face for a minute or two. Maybe we should think about how we're going to describe our generation to our grandchildren. (Assuming, of course, our kids will still choose sex over the latest App, and our increasingly fat asses will live long enough to even see grandchildren).

I can hear our stories now. Long gone will be the uphill 5-mile treks to school and back in a foot of snow like we heard from our grandparents. Instead we’ll be telling our grandchildren how rough we had it way back in the day when we had to fire up the microwave oven for a whole minute before we could eat. We'll lament about how our televisions were a whopping three inches thick and the high definition screens were only the size of a small car, and we had to push buttons on something called a remote control to change the channels!

We'll tell them about how sometimes we actually would have to pry our lazy asses off the couch so we could get into our cars and drive up to a window at something called a bank to get money so we could drive up to another window to get food, and occasionally we would even have to drive to some place called an “instant oil change joint” where we would sit in our cars while lesser men than us worked underneath us in a dark pit below the engine to keep them running. (It’s amazing the self-serve pump ever caught on since it’s about the only thing we do for ourselves anymore.)

Still, I'm a little confused because I'm not quite sure which generation I belong to. I guess I’m a "tweener" of sorts. I’m part of the old, but also part of the new. I can remember things from my childhood that needed to technologically advance if we were to survive. Things like the 8-track player which inevitably cut your favorite song in half from one track to the next, forcing you to wait five, maybe 10, seconds for the song to resume on the next track. Or my personal favorite, the lawn darts game called Jarts. I’m pretty sure those who actually survived playing Jarts were left scratching their heads as to how such an amazingly stupidly thought out game, where the players basically try to skewer each other with gigantic darts tossed aimlessly through the air from a distance of 20 or so feet, could have ever been invented in the first place. (Oddly, Jarts seems to have morphed into the popular tailgating game with the unfortunate name of “Cornhole” where beanbags are tossed at targets rather than heavy, pointed metal missiles).

Of course, some of the new inventions and trends from this generation are just as stupid. There are a lot of tatooed kids walking around right now who are going to be second-guessing themselves 20-years down the road when their barbed wire biceps sag and wrinkle, or their tramp stamps ... well, I don't even want to go there. And right at the top of the list, at least my list, is the mind-numbing smart phone. Is it really making our lives that much better? I mean their addictive powers have people crashing their cars, walking into street poles and mall fountains, and basically ignoring all life forms around them.

Why celebrate a victory when you can check out your phone? (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

If that wasn't bad enough, smart phones are ruining my photos too! It seems that every time I take a picture of a crowd at a sporting event going crazy after an amazing play, there are always three or four expressionless people in the crowd looking down at their damn phones. It's like they're completely oblivious to what just happened on the field, or the fact that they’re at a game, or maybe even outside! And it’s not just the crowd. The other night I was shooting a basketball game when I noticed one of the young photographers down the row from me also had his head down staring at his phone, thumbs a blazing. Thank God there wasn’t a loose ball flying out of bounds in his direction or he would have been creamed, unless, of course, his phone was smart enough to put up a protective shield.

I can only imagine the lengths this technology might take us. Soon people will be podcasting their own funerals so that no one really has to travel to pay their respects. And when the funeral is over, I fully expect a lot of folks will choose to be buried with their smart phones. This will, of course, lead to an increase in the age old (and technologically absent) art form of grave robbing, as hordes of cash-strapped iAddicts will grab up their shovels, head for the boneyard, and try to pry the latest Droid from the rigor mortis grip of the freshly deceased before the battery dies.

Oh well, at least they’ll be getting some exercise.

Legacy Redefined

2011-11-10T07:07:00.000-08:00

Not the ending Joe Paterno envisioned. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

It wasn’t a great week to be a college football fan. In light of the Penn State football sex scandal that gets more incredibly vile by the minute, it wasn’t even a great week to be a human being.

Heads are rolling this morning, most notably legendary coach Joe Paterno’s, after his former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky’s brutal, sexual tirades on underprivileged youths were finally unearthed after years of what appears to be a massive coverup by the university, the local police, or anyone else who seemed too chicken shit to stand up against the football powerhouse PSU, and take the side of the innocent boys who were allegedly preyed upon by Sandusky.

Penn State students rioted last night when they found out Paterno had been fired. A television van was flipped, rocks were thrown through windows, and it looked for all the world like another Kent State circa 1970 was about to happen when Mother Nature moved in and sprayed the crowd with a cold, driving rain, doing what the riot police’s pepper spray couldn’t – send everyone home.

It was ugly, but there was no way this thing was ever going to have a pretty ending. If the board of trustees had left everything as it were and kept Paterno on until the end of the season, it would have just compounded the problem, festering the boil of public opinion that had so many talking heads spewing on and on about the topic.

They did what many folks, outside the PSU student body, considered the “right” thing to do - they fired him. They also fired university president Graham Spanier, but not then graduate assistant Mike McQueary, who walked in on Sandusky allegedly sodomizing a 10-year-old boy in the football facility showers in 2002.

McQueary's actions, or inactions, also have created a big stir in the office of public opinion. His initial response was to run away from the scene in disbelief before calling his father for advice. His father advised him to tell coach Paterno about what he witnessed, which he did. Paterno then told the PSU Athletic Director Tim Curley who relayed it to Spainer, but with each successive leap up the chain of command, somehow the information fell victim to a grown up version of the telephone game where “sodomy” morphed into “horsing around.”

Sports radio hosts, their callers, Internet chatters, and just about everyone else is lambasting McQueary for not doing more. “If I were him (McQueary), I would have beat Sandusky to within an inch of his life,” seems to be a popular response from many callers or online commenters who have responded on the topic.

The truth is, none of us really know how we would react in that situation. It’s easy with hindsight on our side to say how we think we’d react, but we don’t really know. I’m pretty sure Mike McQueary never asked for any of this to happen to him, just like Sandusky’s alleged victims never asked to be sodomized in a Penn State football facility shower.

“Why didn’t he go to the police?” “Why didn’t he stop it?” People want to know. The righteous are pissed, and maybe deservedly so, but why don’t battered women leave their husbands? Why don’t people leave their shitty jobs?

It’s never as cut and dried as we’d like it to be, and suddenly we’re all experts on the situation, even when we’re far removed from it.

Early this morning, TV crews were on Paterno’s doorstep looking for his reaction. It seems as if Paterno has been itching to talk, but his attorneys haven’t let him say much of anything. His wife was at his side as he briefly addressed the crowd of reporters and students gathered at his doorstep still not saying much of anything. She looked horrified and confused. Much of the country feels the same way.

It’s hard to say what’s going on in Paterno’s mind. For the past several years the popular belief has been that Joe Pa hasn’t really been running the football program anyway, he’s just their figurehead, their messiah – a grandfatherly figure to everyone at the school, football player or otherwise.

Maybe he didn’t know the full context of what was going on, but if it turns out he did (and we may never know) then the people in State College, and the rest of the country for that matter, will have lost a lot of faith in human kind, and Happy Valley won’t be very happy at all.

Getting There

2011-11-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Anamosa, Iowa. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Maybe it was the sun beating on the side of my head. Maybe I was trying too hard. Maybe the vista was too dead this time of year. I’m not sure, but whatever it was that was keeping me from finding it, it was pissing me off.

Some people drink to find it. Some people take drugs. Not me. I take an eight-hour road trip to Iowa to find it. But dammit, this time it wasn’t working.

The mental peace I get from driving long distances by myself can be intoxicating. It’s a chance for me to unleash my brain and let it roam without interruption. I don’t even try to rein it in, I just make sure to cool it down and wipe it off before I put it back in the stable. But no amount of radio flipping or CD playing was doing the trick. My mind wasn’t wandering. I wasn’t getting there. I was irritated, not calm, and to make matters worse, my cruise control had gone belly up and now my ass was starting to throb with four more hours of highway staring me in the face.

Shit.

Normally the bowels of northwestern Indiana don’t bother me much, but this was different. Now I was wishing I’d have flown to Iowa. If not for thoughts of Buddy Holly and Richie Valens smoldering in a cornfield, I might have.

Double shit.

I became depressed. And why not? Who else could derive pleasure from driving to Iowa? Now I was just like everyone else, slugging along expressionless, mile after dead straight mile on westbound I-80, just like Henry Ford intended, but Iowa came quicker than I expected. I guess I was going faster than I thought. I had been banking on a third of the day behind the wheel, but when I arrived in Cedar Rapids early in the afternoon, only six and a half hours had elapsed from the time I left Michigan.

I wasn't hungry because I’d already eaten lunch on the road, and my room wasn’t ready for check in either, so with an hour to kill and nothing to do I stood in the hotel lobby and looked blankly at the wall.

Triple shit.

The last thing I wanted to do was head back out on the road, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand there looking at the wall for another hour, so I put my luggage back in the car, pulled my cameras out of the trunk and headed east on the first country road I found. Maybe, I thought, just maybe I might be able to find my peace somewhere off the beaten path, or at the very least, a secluded spot where I could piss.

The road I chose was hilly and the corn was dead. Barely another car passed me as I continued east until I saw a sign for Jones County – birthplace of Grant Wood, the man who painted “American Gothic.”

This seemed promising. The last time I was in Cedar Rapids, I had driven to the Field of Dreams movie site in Dyersville and some amazing things had happened. I found it that day, that’s for sure. A few strolls through the magical corn rows in centerfield and I felt like a kid again, not to mention my car radio, which had been broken for two years, started working again the minute I left the parking lot. Maybe a visit to Grant Wood’s birthplace would fix my cruise control and save my ass seven-plus hours of agony on the trip home?

Local farmer's ode to Grant Wood. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Wood was born just outside the town of Anamosa, about a half hour from Cedar Rapids. I pulled into Anamosa and drove around a bit. It was small and quaint, but it had the most amazing state penitentiary I’d ever seen. I pulled into a small parking lot in the middle of the town and began to stroll around on foot, stopping to photograph things that caught my eye – an old VW van painted with clouds, a ball diamond across the street from the slammer, and the prison itself, which was very old, but definitely occupied because I could hear the inmates through the open windows.

Their talking started to loosen my mind a bit. Who’d have thunk criminal chatter would have done the trick? But it did. Not the turn-your-brain-loose-for-hours-on-end deal like a road trip gave me, but it definitely got me to thinking about more than the normal, mundane this-is-your-lousy-middle-aged-life-stuck-in-a-major-rut bullshit I was used to.

I started thinking about Iowa criminals. Were they just as evil as Detroit criminals? Crime isn’t the first thing that pops into your head when you think about Iowa, after all … farmers and pheasants maybe, but certainly not murderers or rapists. But there they were; chatting away not 20-feet from my trespassing self on the other side of a concrete wall built in the late 1800’s.

I asked a lady raking leaves across the street what kind of prison it was. She told me it used to be minimum security, but it had changed and now there were some pretty bad people in there. I asked her if it freaked her out to live right across the street from the prison. She shrugged her shoulders as if she hadn’t really thought about it much. But I thought about it.

I thought about Grant Wood too. He’d painted “American Gothic” 81-years ago, but he may as well have painted it last week – at least in Anamosa. If Facebook, Twitter, smartphones and computer games have taken over most of America, they somehow glossed over Anamosa.

Old neighbors stood at the ends of their driveways shooting the shit and drinking beer out of a can. Their laughter echoed off the walls of boredom. It was the kind of laughter I remembered hearing from drunken adults in my own small hometown in Ohio when I was a kid – a raspy mix of filterless Camels and Pabst Blue Ribbon guffawing out of their cancerous lungs, stomachs and wind pipes. They might die tomorrow, but Goddammit, they’re having a hell of a good time right now.

One of the neighbors gave me a friendly wave as if to say, “Drop them cameras son and crack open a beer with us.” I waved back and nodded the universal nod that says, “You keep havin’ your fun, you don’t need any son-of-an-Ohio-redneck intrudin’ on your good time by suckin’ down your stash of liquid gold – but thanks anyway.”

The friendly neighbor acknowledged my nod and turned back to his crew at the end of the driveway. Up the street, a young girl and her brother were roller-skating up and down the sidewalk in front of their house. Every now and then a motorcycle would pass by, but for the most part it was quiet, except for the chatter of the prisoners that wafted out into the street through the open windows of the state pen.

If these walls could talk - Iowa State Penitentiary in Anamosa. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

After an hour or so it started to get dark, so I ended my brief excursion with rural America and headed back to Cedar Rapids. For the next day and a half I would switch gears and become a sports photographer at a major university. But I left Anamosa somewhat excited, because after eight hours on the road, my mind had finally switched on and I couldn’t wait for the drive home on Sunday.

The football game was a good one – nice and controversial with an exciting ending, but the one thing that stuck with me was how far off the weatherman was. A forecast of low 60’s and sunny skies gave way to a high of 39 with mid-day skies as dark as the bottom of a manhole cover. That was okay with me. I like gloomy skies and it never rained, so I didn’t particularly mind that I pretty much froze my balls off the entire duration of the game.

The other thing that stuck out about Saturday was that I left Cedar Rapids for Iowa City in the early morning dark, and I returned to Cedar Rapids in the evening dark. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worked from sunup till sundown, but I imagined there were a lot of folks in the state who could.

When Sunday morning arrived, it came with cloudy skies and 40 mph winds coming straight out of the south. Since I was driving due east, and Iowa’s cornfields don’t offer much in the way of protection from the elements, I knew this would make for some pretty interesting driving.

I decided to forego I-80, at least for a while, and take a road less traveled as I headed out of the state. It proved a wise decision. With little to no traffic, it didn’t really matter if a sudden wind gust blew me a little left of center since there was nothing for me hit head on but emptiness.

It was that emptiness that really hit home. I drove past field after field of dead, brown, bristly corn waving to me like the beer-swilling dude at the end of his driveway in Anamosa. I passed through small town after small town - each a carbon copy of the other – one gas station, a grain elevator, a pizza joint and a church, but not a human in sight. I half expected tumbleweed to be blowing down the street, but all I saw was an endless stream of freight trains, some a mile long I’ll bet, crawling parallel to my path heading westward, as if Manifest Destiny beckoned those coal carrying Conrails to a place where the grass was greener, and their payload burned cleaner.

The lines of the Iowa country road met the railroad tracks at the very same point well off in the distance. Maybe Grant Wood saw the same thing. Maybe every art teacher who ever taught perspective drawing stared out on the horizon from this exact spot in eastern Iowa, where all things come to a point on the horizon –roads, railroad tracks, cornfields, telephone lines ... and thoughts. They all started right there in front of me, just out of reach – always out of reach.

Off to the south the sun sliced through the clouds from time to time like a laser beam, blowing up distant silos in the middle of the fields with its bright beam of light that looked very much like an alien abduction was about to take place. When the sun hit my car, I wondered if some farmer looking out his window a mile away in that same field saw me in one of those same brilliant beams of light and found it just as amazing as I did? Or maybe he just kick off his shit-encrusted boots and poured himself a cup of Folger’s instant coffee without giving it so much as a second thought?

An epiheny? Or just a field? (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

It was that moment when I began thinking about my dead mother. I hadn’t missed my mom in a while, but I was really missing her now. I don’t think she’d ever even been to Iowa, but I felt like she was there, and when I say there, I mean inside my head.

I thought about my dad too. About how we don’t really have a whole hell of a lot to say to each other these days. Never really did. He’d been to Iowa plenty. He used to go pheasant hunting there every fall with his work buddies from Ford. I wondered if he’d ever traveled this same road, if he’d ever seen the brilliant shafts of sunlight blowing up the dead fields, or the railroad tracks and the highway coming to a point in the far off distance, or if he just slept the whole time while his buddies did most of the driving.

Whatever it was that had blocked my brain on the trip out, it had certainly been dislodged now.

“I gotta write some of this shit down.” I thought to myself. “There’s no frickin’ way I’m gonna remember all of this – hell, probably none of it.”

Everything seemed profound. Everything seemed real. My thoughts were flying around my brain so fast, I almost had to pull over. I was in mental overload. It was so overwhelming, I felt like I might actually cry and I had no idea why. Was it the corn? Was it the light? Was I happy? Was I sad?

Fuck if I knew?

I peeled off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. I put on my sunglasses even though it was mostly cloudy. Ten miles ahead was civilization. Before long, I’d be crossing the Mississippi River and leaving Iowa behind in the rear view mirror. The next exit was my southbound turn back to reality. Back to the painful cramp in my ass and the continual formation of a blood clot in the lower half of my right leg as I cruised eastward on I-80 with its semi-truck traffic and zoned-out-latte'-junkies texting themselves into the medians and ditches of the world on an otherwise perfectly clear, dry day.

Author on the road. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: Aunt Dorothy Goes Home

2011-10-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

Aunt Dorothy's burial on Wednesday afternoon in the rain. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

If there truly is no place like home, then Aunt Dorothy should be plenty happy now that she’s finally there.

After 97-years roaming planet Earth, Dorothy Demske was laid to rest at Michigan Memorial Park in Flat Rock on Wednesday - a perfectly gloomy and rainy October day that seemed fitting for a funeral and burial - if nothing else. And when I say Dorothy roamed the planet, I was being literal, because before she died, Dorothy trotted her wee frame across the globe to more than 40 countries and nearly every state in the U.S. - her latest venture in 2002 when, at the age of 89, she went out west to Colorado and Oregon to not only see what Mother Nature had to offer, but also hit the casinos.

She lived life like a rock star, or at least she kept the same hours. She was the most anti-geriatric person I ever met in that department. She’d sleep until the middle of the afternoon most days, and stay up until the early hours in the morning. I’m not sure how she made any friends at the American House, a senior home in Riverview where she lived the last decade or so of her life, or if anyone there even knew she existed since she was living in an opposite universe, but she did. In fact, everyone loved Dorothy … and why not?

Dorothy lived the way most of us wish we could. She had no fears, either about living, or dying. She was sure she would live to see 100 - she even looked forward to it, going so far as inviting everyone she knew to her century birthday party up to five years in advance! Well, she didn’t quite make it. Lung cancer, of all things, derailed her plan. Ironic given the fact she was a non-smoker. But at 97, or any age over 90 really, shouldn’t the cause of death always be listed as … old age?

Dorothy at peace. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

It’s funny that the last time I would see Dorothy would be at funeral, because it’s also the first time I met her – at my wife’s father’s funeral. That was 16-years ago, and I’ll never forget that meeting because at the age of 81, Dorothy stepped off the back of a makeshift platform set up at the gravesite, and did a backwards flop into a snow bank. She was perfectly fine, and in fact laughing about the whole episode, which not only brought levity to the situation, but also stole the show.

At the time, all of my mother-in-law’s siblings were still alive (save for two, who died at infancy). Dorothy was the oldest of those siblings, Marge, my mother-in-law, was the youngest. In between were sisters Mildred and Helen, and a brother, Jud. Within a year, Helen and Jud would die. Mildred joined them four years ago, leaving only the bookends of the Demske clan left to reminisce.

I’ve been lucky enough to be around for those 16-years to eavesdrop on some of that reminiscing, and it’s been fascinating.

Dorothy Demske loved to argue, but near as I can tell, she never really complained. She embraced the world around her like no one I ever met at any age. She didn’t care that her body was failing her, I guess because her mind was still razor sharp. Her stories were amazing; not only in their subject matter, but also in the way she told them. She was kind of like Yoda (certainly in size anyway) to all her nieces and nephews and their children, who would gather around her on holidays as she would tell stories about her childhood or her worldly travels.

Her life story was pretty amazing. She was born in 1914, and when the Great Depression hit, it hit the Demske family particularly hard. Living in Wyandotte, MI., her father, like many others at the time, had lost his job and eventually the family home. With five kids to feed, and no way to do it, Dorothy suddenly found herself taking over as the breadwinner in the family, working a job at the welfare office in Wyandotte shortly after she graduated from high school.

Photos from Dorothy's childhood.

“She would have loved to have gone to college,” her sister Marge reflected, “but there was no way back then – no money, no way to get funding.”

After the depression, Dorothy would stay in the working world at a time when most women got married, stayed home and had kids. She stayed single her entire life, going on to work at GM for 34-years before she retired in 1974. And where some folks struggle with what they should do with the rest of their lives after retirement, Dorothy never had that problem.

The world was her oyster, and at the age of 60, she was hell bent on seeing as much of it as possible, and sharing it with as many people as possible. Despite never marrying or having children, Dorothy made it a point to take her nieces and nephews (of which there were plenty) to Washington D.C.

That trip to D.C. was a real bonding experience, not only for Dorothy and her nieces and nephews, but also for the many cousins who made the trip. Cousins who often didn’t see much of each other and were brought together by Aunt Dorothy for a memorable visit to our nation’s capital. They were still talking fondly about those trips at Dorothy’s funeral.

And it wasn’t only this world that Dorothy loved to visit. She often talked about seeing visions of the dead. When she was a little girl, she vividly remembers seeing a little boy walk down the hallway outside her bedroom door. She told her mother about the little boy, and her mother told her she was dreaming. The next morning it was learned that Dorothy’s uncle, a young boy named Floyd, had died the night before. Dorothy insists the young boy she saw walking down the hallway was Floyd shortly after his death.

She would continue having visits from the afterworld her entire life, most recently from a pair of trousers and shoes belonging to her brother Jud. They never frightened her; instead, she was always calm and relieved by them. Dorothy considered herself something of a medium – and the visions were a way of letting all her loved ones know that the deceased were giving Dorothy a sign that everything was all right. Most people stop believing in ghosts when they grow up. I think Dorothy started believing in them even more.

St. Patrick's Church in Wyandotte where Dorothy's funeral was held. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

In the last five years, I’m not sure if I ever saw Dorothy dressed in anything other than a bathrobe. She made it a point to come and visit Marge at least a couple times a year and she would always stay for a week during her visit. For a woman who probably weighed less than 100 pounds, she sure loved to eat. And listening to her argue with her younger sister about the silliest things made me realize that siblings never really leave their childhood habits or birth order behind, no matter how old they are.

But Dorothy was also a magnet - a world-class storyteller - a walking history book. She had a way of taking over a room, even if it was filled with kids who normally don’t give older folks the time of day. Thankfully, my brother-in-law Terry had the foresight to recognize this gift and he decided to bring a tape recorder with him on a visit to see Aunt Dorothy one quiet afternoon about four years ago. Terry interviewed Dorothy for several hours about her life that day, and he brought that tape to her funeral where we all were blessed to hear Dorothy tell some of those stories one last time.

More amazing than the stories was the fact that there were more than 50 people gathered, both old and young, on a cold, rainy Wednesday afternoon, to hear those stories told by an old woman who never got married or had any kids of her own, but who easily had the biggest family of any of us. Even in her death, Dorothy had a way of holding the room as we all sat there silenced and entranced by her tape-recorded voice talking about the first time she and her dad went out for a drive in his brand new car, or the time she rocked her baby brother to sleep when she was five years old, a month before he died.

I was looking at a picture of Aunt Dorothy that was sitting on our table as I listened to her tell those stories. It was like she was there. In some ways I wondered if she was. Either way, I got the feeling we’d be seeing her soon.

In the end, maybe the Priest presiding over her funeral said it best when he said, "I never once heard her say, 'I wish I would have done something different.'"

How many of us can say that?

R.I.P. Aunt Dorothy.

Going Down Swinging

2011-09-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

Jim Thome sits in the Indians dugout at Comerica Park in Detroit, Monday night, September 26th. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

It wasn’t supposed to end like this … or maybe it was.

The Hollywood endings had already taken place earlier this season for Jim Thome, the affable slugger who spent most of his hall-of-fame career with the Cleveland Indians until he left as a free agent in 2002 for Philly, and then Chicago, a brief stint in Los Angeles, and then Minnesota, before finally returning home to Cleveland at the end of August to play what might be his last month of professional baseball.

Over the course of his nearly 20-years in Major League baseball, Thome has smashed 604 home runs, most of them the “no-doubter” type, becoming only the eighth player to hit more than 600 round-trippers in a career (and only the fifth who wasn’t linked to performance enhancing drugs). And of those 604 majestic dingers smashed out of ballparks nationwide by the humble native of Peoria, Illinois, none were more memorable than the two he launched into orbit on a beautiful August night in Detroit when he hit numbers 599 and 600.

It was a night I’ll never forget because I was there with my family, sitting six rows behind the Minnesota Twins dugout with tickets I scored from a friend at a charity golf scramble in June. At the time I got the tickets, I joked how cool it would be when Thome jacked his 600th homer that night. I never thought it would actually happen.

But it did happen. And it was magical.

Before we left for the game, my son decided it might be a good idea to make up a sign for Thome just in case the improbable actually happened. So he sat down at the kitchen table with a piece of poster board and a black marker, and proceeded to create a 24 x 36 inch “Thome is my Homie” masterpiece. The poster was so catchy, and our seats were in such a prime location, that by night’s end he and his sign not only made the Tiger’s live game broadcast three or four times, but he was on ESPN’s SportsCenter the next morning and his picture was splashed all over the internet. Of course none of that really mattered to us (well, maybe it was a little bit cool) because we knew we had witnessed history.

Eamon with his sign (and his dad) right behind the Twins dugout. (Photo by Robin Buckson/Detroit News)

Oddly enough, a few short weeks after his history-making night, Thome was unceremoniously placed on waivers by Minnesota. But, as luck would have it, the Indians designated hitter, Travis Hafner, hurt his foot the same week, (ironically in Detroit) so the Tribe claimed Thome off waivers for the stretch drive of the season and it became clear that one of baseballs nicest guys would end his career in the same place where it all began.

Moving back to Cleveland to finish his career seemed to be Hollywood-ending number two for Thome, but just for good measure, Cleveland’s front office quickly put together “Jim Thome Night” for the Tribe’s last home stand of the 2011 season. On that night it was announced that a larger-than-life statue of the popular slugger would be commissioned and placed beyond the left-centerfield fence where many of Thome’s titanic homers had fallen back to earth during his storied career. And wouldn’t you know it, as if on cue, Thome mashed a 440-foot bomb that landed in the exact spot where his statue will soon stand.

Unbelievable.

That was just a week ago. On Monday night, Thome arrived in Detroit, the same place he’d entered the history books a month and a half ago, for the last three games of the 2011 season. I was excited because for the first time in my career as a photojournalist, I’d finally gotten the chance to cover Major League baseball, and the prospect of photographing one of my favorite players in action was reason enough for me to forget about the day-long rain and head for the Motor City to see Thome up close and in action.

But this time there was no magic. The Indians had long been eliminated from the playoff chase – the reason they picked up Thome in the first place, and Thome looked tired and worn as he sat in the same dugout where he’d been cheered so loudly by the Tiger fans on that incredible August night, that he came out and tipped his hat to the crowd.

Now he just sat quietly between teammates young enough to be his sons as the starting lineups were announced. He sat there with batting gloves on his hands, but no hat on his head. He didn’t really need a hat, he was hired only to hit the ball after all, not field it. He had no need for a ball cap, or even a mitt. All he needed was his pine-tar-covered batting helmet and a rack of Louisville Sluggers. But the truth is; he didn’t really need them either - at least not on this night.

Thome would sit the bench the entire game – a game that saw the Tribe get absolutely waxed by the red-hot Tigers, 14-0. Occasionally, Thome would disappear to the locker room for a while, but he’d always reappear to check and see how things were going.

He moved gingerly as he made trips to and from the locker room. A reporter from Cleveland that I’d met in the press box before the game told me that Thome had issues with his back. To see him walk, I didn’t doubt it was true. But then again, Thome seemed to do everything at a snail’s pace. He ran slowly. He talked slowly. He couldn’t seem to ramp it up for anything unless it was time to swing a bat. The speed and power he generated with a baseball bat was anything but slow, and that violent collision he created over 600 times with bat and ball was something I was yearning to see one more time.

I spent most of my time peering at Thome sitting on the Indians bench from the photo wells located at the ends of the dugout. Every now and then, he would look my way as well. But it wasn’t so much as if he were looking at me, as it was looking past me. His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying or hadn’t gotten enough sleep. Neither was true, I suspect, more likely dry contact lenses or allergies. But there was sadness to it all – for me anyhow.

It was hard not to feel for Thome. He's easy to root for because all he's ever done is play ball and be a nice guy, but now his 41-year-old body was starting to let him down. This was most likely it for him, I suspected - the last three games of his career.

Baseball is a kid’s game played best by kids, and Thome was no longer a kid. He’d turned back the clock several times over the past two seasons. He reminded us he could still mash with the best of them ... when he got his pitch. But his opportunities for that pitch were shrinking, and with each successive at bat, Thome was moving one step further from his playing, and one step closer to Cooperstown.

There was an emptiness to the night. A real flatness that is hard to describe. The young players on the Indians team, several of them September call-ups or Latino players who spoke little English, hung together and joked at one end of the dugout as the first year of their careers wound to a close. They would go on to play winter league ball in Mexico, or maybe Arizona, as they continued to hone their skills to try to remain in the big leagues. Thome, on the other hand, had nothing to prove, or improve. He sat quietly on the bench staring out at the field. He had two games to go, but for one night at least we were equals on the ball diamond. We were both spectators.

The next night Thome did play. This time I watched the game at home on television as Thome went two for three, scored two runs and knocked in two more before being lifted for a pinch runner late in the game. The Tribe lost 9-6, but Thome looked young again.

Wednesday night was the final game of the season for the Tribe, and once again, Thome was on the bench. It didn’t seem fitting, but I guess if his last game was a two for three, two RBI outing from the night before, that wasn’t so bad.

The game was close – a real see-saw battle that was tied until former Indian shortstop Jhonny Peralta struck back at his old team by hitting a solo homer in the bottom of the eighth inning to put Detroit up 5-4. That was it, I figured. The Tribe’s season would end with a four-game losing streak and Jim Thome would ride the pine to end his career.

But it wasn’t the end. Jim Thome wasn’t done yet. With one out in the top of the ninth, Cleveland called on their slugger to pinch hit against Detroit’s eccentric closer Jose Valverde. It was a fan’s dream – power against power. Valverde had been perfect on the season. In 48 save chances, he had yet to blow a one. But Thome could change all that with one more magical swipe of the bat.

Tigers closer Jose Valverde. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I watched with great interest, not because the game was close and tension was in the air. I watched because I knew this the last time I would get to see Jim Thome standing in a batter’s box.

Valverde quickly got ahead of Thome, 0-2, with a pair of fastballs that painted the inside corner. My heart sunk. At that point I figured he was done. But Thome was in no mood to chase anything off the plate, and Valverde sure as heck wasn’t going to give him anything good to hit, so just as quickly as he’d thrown two strikes, Valverde evened the count by throwing two balls.

His fifth pitch missed as well, and now the count was full, three balls and two strikes. My 11-year-old son told me that he hated full counts when he plays, whether he was batting or pitching, because he knew he had to throw a strike on a full count as a pitcher, or else he'd give up a walk, and he knew as a batter he was supposed to get a hit, or at least a walk, when he faced a full count. It was an interesting perspective from a young ballplayer, and I wondered if Thome and Valverde were feeling the same way.

As a viewer, I was excited because I knew, I just knew that this would be the one time Valverde would have to throw a big, fat strike to Thome, and I knew, I just knew that Thome was going to smash it high and far into the late-September air, and I would get treated to one last Hollywood ending.

Valverde twisted his pot-bellied torso toward center field before slowly unwinding it and slinging a split-fingered fastball down the heart of the plate at 94 mph. The pitch was flat and just above the belt. Thome's eyes locked on the pitch, he planted his right foot firmly in the dirt and began to uncoil his thick frame one body part at a time until his hips snapped into place and his massive forearms whipped the bat at lightning speed into the strike zone.

I sat on the edge of my chair waiting for the inevitable collision of rawhide and lumber - waiting for home run number 605 to sail out of Comerica Park. The bat was nothing but a blur as it swooshed toward history. A loud smack followed. But it wasn't the smack I was expecting, it was the smack of the ball firmly planting itself into the pocket of a catcher’s mitt at 94 mph. Thome’s body continued to uncoil violently as his bat sliced through the air in front of home plate before slowing to a stop.

Strike three.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Or maybe it was.

Jim Thome walked slowly back to the dugout one last time. He’d gone down swinging, his career most likely over, and even though I couldn’t see his face clearly on the television, I suspected his eyes were a little red. Just like mine.

Thanks for the memories Jim.

(Note: As of Thursday, Thome was hinting around that he may be back for one more season. I, for one, would love to see it.) Here's a link to a video of Thome's homer on "Jim Thome Night" in Cleveland last week:

http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/video/play.jsp content_id=19544591&topic_id=8879220&c_id=cle

Finding My Religion

2011-09-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

Jesus at the DIA. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

When I was in the third grade my mother was certain I would someday grow up to be a priest. This seemed rather odd to me given the fact I was already cussing like a sailor and I really liked looking at boobs. Still, she seemed undeterred in her vision of my future, so she sent me (and my siblings) packing to Catechism every Saturday.

I suppose it could have been worse. She could have sent us to Catholic school instead. But my father had gone to Catholic school and he didn’t turn out so hot, so I think my mother took the safe route by only giving us small doses of the guilt and humiliation doled out by Catholics as part of their indoctrination into their religion, hoping we might somehow actually like it.

Of course, every proactive move my mother made to strengthen our faith in God was met by an equally retroactive move by my father who routinely used the names of God and Jesus Christ on a daily basis, but never in prayer.

“I don’t understand why we have to take these Goddamned kids to Catechism every Saturday.” He would moan.

“Tom, watch your mouth.” She would snap.

“Jeee-zus Keee-rist! Do you really think it matters? He’d reply, as we kids shook our heads in agreement with our Father, who art in the livingroom.

My dad already knew we were probably beyond reproach, but my mother still held out hope, so they struck up a deal - we’d go to Catechism until our confirmation (never could tell what we were confirmed as - idiots? morons? sacrilegious miscreants?) and then the rest was up to us.

It was then and there that I thought I ought to at least try and understand Catholicism if I were going to have to endure several more years of being looked down upon by the kids at St. Peter’s who treated those who didn’t attend their school as if we were lepers (very un-WWJD, if you ask me).

It was tough to digest some of the material being taught by the less-than-friendly teaching staff who treated us like we were prisoners being shipped in every Saturday so we could be set straight before being released back into mainstream population.

I swear my teachers never smiled – not once. They were all converts to the Catholic religion, which even the Catholics will tell you is the worst kind of Catholic (totally fanatical). I was scolded all the time for not knowing the proper “Catholic speak” which is to say I was always kneeling at the wrong time, saying the wrong prayer, standing when I was supposed to sit. I even farted once while walking into the church. This brought a chuckle from my classmates and the Priest (who actually seemed like a pretty cool guy - young, long hair) but not my teacher.

I was made to feel shame for my flatulence and I was assigned to say 15 “Our Fathers” and 20 “Hail Marys” for my sin. That was kind of a problem since I didn’t exactly have either prayer memorized at the time, so I decided to pray for God’s forgiveness instead.

Jesus at the Outsider Art Show in Harbert, MI. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

“Please God, or Jesus, or whoever is up there, could you maybe find it in your heart to forgive me for farting in church today? I swear I didn’t do it on purpose. Honestly, I tried to hold it in, but it just slipped out. I suppose I should have farted when I was outside before I got into the church because it was really windy and it wouldn’t have echoed so much, but sometimes you just don’t think about these things until it’s too late. Anyhow, I’m supposed to say a bunch of “Our Fathers” and “Hail Marys” but here's the problem ... you see I don’t really know either prayer all that well, so I’m kind of hoping you might cut me some slack on that one too? I promise I’ll try harder to be good in the future. Thanks God. Amen.”

It wasn’t the last time I prayed to God, but I quickly realized most of my prayers were asking for forgiveness for something I’d done in Catechism. My first (and last) communion was a debacle. I hated the way the communion wafers tasted (although I did find they made awesome Frisbees for my G.I. Joe at home) and when they told me it was really the “body of Christ” I was ingesting, I pictured myself as a cannibal eating what was left of poor Jesus.

I also got into trouble when I wet my hair down with Holy water from the Baptismal font (hey, it was picture day and my hair was sticking up) and when I went to Holy confession for the first time, I found I really had nothing more to confess other than the fact I often cussed and I liked looking at boobs.

My punishment? (Besides being laughed at by the Priest) You guessed it - 15 “Our Fathers” and 20 “Hail Marys”

I’ve grown up to be an even worse Catholic than I was when I was a kid. I still swear as much as ever, I rarely go to church, and I even got a vasectomy after my third kid was born. I don’t think I have enough life span left to say the number of “Our Fathers” and “Hail Marys” I'll need to gain absolution with the Catholics, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not a spiritual person.

Faith is something that has always astounded me, probably because I don’t have much of it. But I admire those who do have it, especially those who seem to have an abundance of blind faith. They seem at peace with themselves – with their world.

That, is not me.

I question everything, including faith and religion, and I wonder how anybody could not. My mind won’t let go of things easily. I’m always looking for proof of a higher power, and even though I haven't really seen it yet, I still pray every night. I still feel a closeness to something, but I wonder why I have to label it? Whether that label is Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or Islam. What difference does it make? Why does one have to choose? Why does one have to be a firm believer in any of them? And what makes one better or worse than the other?

Better yet, why should it matter to anyone what I, or anyone else believes in? Am I really that important? Do I really have to be born again? Why can’t I just be who I am and let the chips fall where they may?

I struggle with the hypocrisy of religion all the time, especially the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” which apparently only applies to folks of the same religion since more people are killed because of a difference in religious beliefs than any other cause.

But just because I don’t have a lot of faith doesn’t mean that I don’t think about it. Even when I was a kid and I hated Catechism, I still liked daydreaming in church when I was looking at the larger than life Jesus on the cross behind the altar. I imagined hanging out with him, or talking to him. I used to close my eyes real tight and hope to hear something from him, but all I ever heard was my teacher yelling at me to keep my butt off the pew when I was on the kneeler.

Today I keep looking. I keep listening. I know the older people get, the more religion plays a part in their lives. Certainly, proximity to death and the unknown of what happens after death strengthens that belief, but my mind can’t even let that one go. I still wonder if there is a heaven, and if there is, isn’t it getting pretty damn crowded about now? And do I really want to go on forever anyhow? Maybe coming to an abrupt end isn’t so bad.

I guess none of us really knows the answers to any of these questions. Some folks see signs all the time – even if it’s in the form of a rust-stain Jesus on a water tower or a burnt-spot Virgin Mary on a potato chip. But for me it’s not that way.

Sometimes I wonder why God would let so many bad things happen to good people - not that I hold it against him. When my best friend died from cancer at the age of 40, I didn’t curse him, and when my mother struggled to breathe on her bedroom floor last March, I didn’t ask him to keep her alive.

I don’t put expectations on God. I don’t feel like it’s God’s job to answer my prayers. I suspect, if he does exist, he’s got bigger fish to fry (but only on Fridays of course) than to take care of my petty wants and needs.

I guess if God truly made me, then he loves me no matter what, much in the same way I love my kids. And even though I can be a complete asshole sometimes, for the most part I think I’m a pretty good guy - despite the fact I still swear too much and I like to look at boobs!

Amen.

You Say It's Your Birthday?

2011-07-17T05:43:00.000-07:00

A nice assortment of cards from my kids with my old driver's license. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I turned 46 yesterday.

It was strange on many fronts, but most notably the fact that right up until midnight the day before I turned 46, I still considered myself to be 45. In years past, I’d always started referring to my up-and-coming age several months before my actual birthday, just to get used to the idea.

I’m not sure why I was holding on to 45 so hard. I guess I kind of like that number. I like any number that ends with a five. They’re easy to add and they’re right down the middle, just the way I like things.

Forty-six, on the other hand, is a bit harder to swallow.

It’s a nothing age really. Not a milestone birthday by any means. Not like the first (hey, we didn’t kill our infant) or the 13th (wow, the kid’s a teenager) the 16th(holy shit, my kid can drive) the 18th (sorry kid, you can’t drink yet, but you can vote) the 21st (have a beer!) 30th (time to grow up asshole) 40th (yeah, about that 401k, maybe it’s time to start putting something in it) or 50 (well, you lived a half a century – congratulations). That’s why I was so surprised I dreaded it so much.

I think it all started on Thursday at the Secretary of State’s office when I had to get my driver’s license renewed. I went early in the morning to beat the crowd, which I did, and I even put on a nice shirt for my new picture. Having a nice picture of myself on my license may be a silly thing to worry about, but it is the picture I’m stuck with for the next four years and it’s the first thing I see whenever I open my wallet. (Nobody wants to look like a complete ass in their driver's license picture, but let's face it, the over-under on doing just that are pretty high!)

So far, in my previous seven tries, I’ve been somewhat lucky to come out of the “one-shot-and-your-done” photo session with a fairly decent picture. I think this is due, in part, to the fact that I’m a professional photographer so I kind of know how to pose, but probably more to the fact that I have a summer birthday so I’m always tan in my photo.

This year, I was surprised to find out that they actually show you your mug before they slap it on your license. I didn’t shave the morning of my renewal pic because I thought a little razor stubble might make me look more intriguing or handsome in an older way, you know, like George Clooney or Brett Favre. Needless to say I was a little taken aback when they showed me my photo and I looked more like a sleep-deprived psycho killer.

“How is that?” The Secretary of State employee asked me when she showed me my photo.

“Who is that? Is more like it.” I answered. “Wow, I look like shit.”

It was true. I had bags under my eyes; my razor stubble was darker than Clooney’s (more like Time-magazine-cover-O.J.), and the summer tan on my face had somehow gone from “glowing” to “official NFL football” in the past four years.

To make matters worse, they didn’t even ask me if I wanted to be an organ donor. When I brought it up, the woman just looked at me as if to say, “Yeah, well, you’re kind of getting to that age where your organs are a little too used and no one really wants them.”

Hey, I want them … they’re not so bad … are they?

I left less than 15-minutes after I had arrived – record time for the Secretary of State’s office, and a good thing apparently, since I don’t have much time to waste now that I’ve officially crested the wave into old age ... or at least older middle age.

Crap.

I’m closer to 50 than to 40 - halfway to 92, which I probably won’t see, so by all rights I’m more than halfway dead. This doesn’t sit well with me, not one bit, and my son didn’t help matters much yesterday when he asked me if a lot of people die on their birthdays. What the hell kind of question is that? I told him he'd better hope not since it just so happened to be my birthday and we were barreling down I-275 at 80 mph.

Just in case, I felt my pulse to make sure everything was okay. You never know these days. The older you get, the more paranoid you are about your health. Heart attacks, cancer, strokes, aneurisms – hell, there’s a number of killers waiting at the doorstep, and that number only increases with each passing year. I’ve been lucky up till now, but you never know, earlier in the week I was battling constipation and I ended up blowing out a hemorrhoid (if that’s not a harbinger for bad things to come, I don’t know what else is - goodbye Captain Crunch, hello All Bran!)

As luck would have it, I lived through the day. It wasn’t much of a birthday (as it shouldn’t have been). We were going to go to a Detroit Tiger’s game, but my son got invited to play in a baseball tournament by one of the travel baseball teams in our division who needed an extra player, so we did that instead. I’d rather watch him play than the Tigers anyhow. It was a lot of fun for me, and even more fun for him.

Eamon pitching for the Northville Cubs. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Later that night we all went to dinner. Nothing fancy, just Red Robin, but I made sure I got a turkey burger instead of a hamburger since I’m getting older and I need to watch the fat. I even gave my free dessert to the kids. Sadly, I was in bed before midnight and it was all over.

Unlike my childhood when I raked in all kinds of cool, summertime booty for my birthday like ball gloves, squirt guns, pup tents and skateboards, this year I got cards from my dad, my sister and my mother-in-law. My kids gave me cards too, really nice ones in fact – hand made even, and the stuff they wrote inside made me realize that if nothing else rubbed off on them, my sarcasm sure as hell did, and that made me very proud.

It turns out my kids actually dig me. Even if I embarrass the hell out them when I wear a Speedo to the city pool, or fart in front of their friends, they still think I’m pretty cool for a dad, which means a lot to me. I mean, how many dads can have their kids call them an asshole in their birthday card and take it as a compliment?

They make me not care about getting old, but they also make me want to hold on to my youth even more. And these days, with all the uncertainty in the world and in my life, it’s nice to have something you can count on, and for me that something is this:

No matter how old I am, I’m almost certain my kids will grow up long before I ever do!

Five Months Later

2011-06-28T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sixty-years of history knocked down in less than an hour. (Photos by Lon Horwedel)

Two people died in there.

That’s all I kept thinking as a small Bobcat with a giant, metal claw began to systematically dismantle the house across the street, picking away at its flesh like some pre-historic vulture, one wall at a time.

It had been five months almost to the day when a fire at the house claimed the lives of my two young neighbors, ages 19 and 20. I still couldn’t tell you their names, but not a day has gone by since that fire on January 29th when I haven’t thought about them at least once. It’s hard not to when you have the constant reminder of their charred gravesite sitting across the street in plain view.

It’s the first thing I see when I walk out our front door. It’s in my rearview mirror when I back out our driveway, and it’s always there waiting for me, welcoming me home, whenever I return, reminding me that death came calling one winter’s morn, not more than 150 feet from my front door. And now it was being eaten up and spit into a dumpster by a mechanical monster.

The demolition took place without much fanfare. There weren’t any explosives, there wasn’t a wrecking ball busting down brick walls, it didn’t even make all that much noise apart from the occasional cracking of a wooden support beam being snapped in two like a matchsticks, or the popping of breaking glass when the large picture window burst like a water balloon when the large claw came calling. If not for the few neighbors who gathered to watch from the sidewalk, the event would have gone completely unnoticed.

But I noticed. I noticed a lot.

I noticed how the Bobcat tore up the home’s front yard on its way to its feast, leaving giant waffle prints in the dirt. I noticed garbage cans still sat in the driveway, unused and unmoved in the same spot they’d occupied for the past five months. I noticed the wreath on the fence that had been put there shortly after the fire by the victim’s friends was now dead, all dried and brown - a sad reminder of how life goes on. But mostly I noticed my neighbors watching from the sidewalk – one of them a spry 90-year old woman who had just lost her husband of 60-years last fall. I wondered how she felt while she stood there watching expressionless with her chin in her hand. I wondered how any of them felt.

A dead, brown memorial wreath still adorns the fence in front of the house.

That house had been there for 60-years. Families had lived there. Memories were made there. But none of it mattered now. It took less than an hour for the Bobcat to create an empty space where the house once stood. On a cold winter morning this past January, it took less than 20-minutes for a stove fire to claim the lives of two of the house’s occupants. It was hard for me to comprehend 60-years of families and memories being completely erased by 20-careless minutes in January and then being ripped apart in less than 45-minutes by demolition crew in June.

When the giant claw belched the final piece of debris into the dumpster, I said goodbye to my neighbors and walked back home. Tomorrow the crew will return to clean up the rest of the mess and haul it away - all but the foundation that is. The foundation remains, and soon a new home will spring up in place of the old one. The home’s owner, the father of one of the victims, is building a new house on the site for his other daughter. I’m not sure how she’ll ever be able to go into the basement of the new house knowing it’s the same place her sister died, but I guess she’s going to give it a try.

I think about that a lot too.

Learning to Fly

2011-06-15T04:58:00.000-07:00

The Leslie Science and Nature Center's bald eagle. (Photos by Lon Horwedel)

Francie Krawcke couldn’t help but smile as she pulled out her favorite pair of orange-handled Fiskars cutting sheers in the back room of Leslie Science and Nature Center’s Critter House and began to slice open the belly of a dead baby rat. With the precision of a surgeon, Krawcke removed the rat’s stomach and intestines and then cut up the remainder of the rodent into nice, clean cubes that she put into a plastic cup.

Bait!

It’s hard to imagine smiling as you disembowel a baby rat, but Krawcke, the center’s 40-year-old raptor specialist, loves her job, and she knows that bait is a vital key to her ultimate goal - she wants to teach the center’s 5-year-old female bald eagle how to fly.

“She won’t eat the stomach or intestines.” Krawcke said, shrugging her shoulders. “She doesn’t like fish either. Figure that one out?”

Getting food ready for the eagle.

It sounds silly – a fully mature, healthy female bald eagle not liking fish or knowing how to fly, but the center’s eagle is not your ordinary eagle. She is what’s called an imprint, meaning not only does she not know how to fly, she doesn’t even know she’s an eagle.

The eagle came to the center after falling out of her nest in Wisconsin at three weeks of age, breaking both a leg and her right wing in the process. The eaglet recuperated at a Wisconsin raptor rehab center for six months, but things got a little tricky when the fully healed eagle was put back into a cage with other adult bald eagles.

“She attacked them!” Krawcke said. “She didn’t see herself as an eagle anymore, she thought she was one of us.”

Knowing there was no way the bird could be kept with other bald eagles, or be released back into the wild, Krawcke decided to take the bird in at the Leslie Nature and Science Center, and that’s where the eagle has spent, and will spend, the remainder of her life - a life that could well reach, and maybe even exceed 50-years.

It’s those 50-years years in captivity that present a bit of a problem for Krawcke.

“It’s important for me to find a successor because I won’t be working here quite that long.” Krawcke says jokingly.

But Krawcke’s smile fades and you can see the concern in her eyes when she thinks about it, because she knows the next few years are critical, both for her, and the eagle, if the eagle is to have a quality life.

This year, in particular, has been a real challenge fro Krawcke. There’s been a lot more at play than just trying to teach the bird how to fly. Krawcke also uses the eagle for educational programs, and up until recently she could always count on another handler, Leanne Chadwick, to help her out. But that all changed when Chadwick injured her knee while skiing this winter and wasn’t able to handle the eagle for several months. When Chadwick was healthy enough to resume handling duties, the eagle spurned her. Feelings were hurt, but the eagle had made up her mind - she will only let Krawcke handle her now.

To further add to the drama, the eagle also has reached sexual maturity, and with the hormonal changes that have taken place because of that, her behavior has become much like that of a teenager, causing frequent power plays between her and Krawcke.

“She’s gotten much stronger physically, and I can tell that.” Krawcke said. “She’s trying to assert her dominance like she would in the wild, and I have to continually reassert mine.”

Krawcke admits it must be hard for the eagle because her natural bird instincts are constantly clashing with her humanness. Krawcke can sense the confusion in the bird, but she knows that she also can’t look at the eagle as anything more than a wild animal. It’s one of the reasons Krawcke hasn’t given the eagle a name and it’s something that’s extremely difficult for Krawcke, given her relationship with the bird.

“She is a wild animal.” Krawcke emphasizes. “I need to be prepared for that every time I work with her… I need to be prepared for her feet. When people working with wild animals get hurt, it’s because they did something wrong, not the animal.”

The relationship between the two is very much mother-daughter like. Krawcke is very protective of the eagle, and the eagle has become very dependent on Krawcke as well, making it tough for Krawcke to be away for long.

“Most of the birds here at the center, if I were to leave they wouldn’t notice. But she would notice.” Krawcke said. “The longest I’ve been away from her is two weeks. She yells, and she gets bitey … with me it’s more of a nibble than a bite, but she always comes.”

The eagle nibbles on Krawcke's face - her way of communicating.

Krawcke constantly walks an emotional tight rope when she is out with the bird in public. She readily admits one of her biggest fears is that the eagle will become a nothing more than a show piece.

“I want people to see her fly, but I have a big fear about becoming a circus attraction.” Krawcke said. “I don’t want it to be a joke. I want to excite people. I want people here in Ann Arbor to see what they’re sharing the world with.”

Teaching the eagle to fly has been a dream for Krawcke since the day the center adopted the bird. She’ll be the first to tell you she’s always been “enthralled with the idea of flight,” but it’s not like Krawcke could just open the eagle’s cage and things would automatically happen. There were, and still are, plenty of obstacles.

As strange as it may seem, fear of flying was one of them. The eagle wasn’t all that keen on the idea at first. Despite little perch-hopping jaunts in her outdoor enclosure, the eagle had never really attempted, or been taught to fly … or land.

“She needed to figure that out.” Krawcke said. “At first she’d slam into the perch because she didn’t know how to flare out her wings to slow down – but she’s getting better!”

Coming in for a perfect landing during a training session.

The ultimate goal for Krawcke is to train the eagle to soar, (and, of course, come back) but her more immediate goal was to get the eagle to fly several hundred yards in front of a large throng of people for the center’s annual fundraiser (Mayfly) in late May.

Using the bait and a series of perches, Krawcke was able to get the eagle to fly short lengths from perch to perch for her food. Gradually, Krawcke increased the distance between the perches.

During training, most of the eagle’s flights took place only a few feet off the ground, often flying so low her wingtips would brush the grass as she made her way across the large field at the center where she trained – that is when they were lucky enough to train. The horrendous spring weather made it almost impossible to fly on most days, and when the weather did cooperate by being warm and dry, high crosswinds were usually at play.

On one particular afternoon, Krawcke’s dream of seeing the eagle soar turned into a nightmare when the eagle got hung up in one of those crosswinds while she was trying to land. A strong updraft took the eagle skyward and started pushing her off the science center grounds and across Traver Road.

“Her eyes were huge! Krawcke said. “She was so nervous.”

Krawcke was equally frightened. “My fear was she’d land in the road and get hit by a car, or land in a yard and get attacked by a dog.” She said.

Luckily, none of that happened. After drifting across the street, the eagle was able to land in the backyard of a neighboring house. Once Krawcke tracked the bird down and saw that the eagle was safely perched on a tree branch too skimpy for launching, she was able to relax, although they never again trained on a windy day.

The episode did little to deter the two. Krawcke could sense the eagle’s fear of flying was now being replaced with confidence and excitement.

“When we take her out she looks all around, she is very curious … she looks forward to it and when she doesn’t get it, she lets me know.” Krawcke said. “She’s always confident. She always wants to work.”

When Mayfly finally arrived, Krawcke was excited, but nervous – a month’s worth of showers had been replaced by blue skies and warm temperatures for most of the day, but now the sky was darkening once again and it was starting to sprinkle.

Krawcke knew that flying in the rain wasn’t something the eagle would be too keen on, so a little ahead of schedule, Krawcke headed to the grassy field with the eagle as the Mayfly patrons followed. Umbrellas began popping up in the crowd as Krawcke gave a brief explanation as to what they were about to witness.

With four perches set up in a box formation roughly 50-yards apart, Krawcke wasted no time starting the flight demonstration. Without any prodding, the eagle hopped off Krawcke’s well-padded handling arm and landed on the nearest perch. Before Krawcke could even place the chunk of rat meat on the next perch, the eagle was off flying across the field. It was a good beginning.

Flying so low her wingtips brush the grass.

The eagle then would fly diagonally to its next perch where it made a perfect landing. Once again, before Krawcke could place the bait on perch number three, the eagle was off and flying, this time parallel to the crowd, where her majestically powerful wing strokes were fully put on display. Another perfect landing later, she turned on her perch and then launched herself diagonally away from the crowd to perch number four. Now she was directly across from the crowd, but this time she paused a while. The rain was falling harder now as she sat on her perch with water beading up on her wings and dripping off her beak.

Waiting in the rain with her back to the crowd.

Maybe this was good enough. Maybe she was done for the night.

At the final landing perch in front of the crowd, Krawcke called for the bird by waving her arm and whistling. The eagle seemed not to notice or care. Again, Krawcke called. Again, the eagle sat silently across the field in the rain. There was no anxiety in the crowd, they didn’t know what to expect, but Krawcke wanted this night to go off without a hitch, and now Mother Nature was trying to have her say.

For the third time, Krawcke raised her arm and whistled for the bird. This time the eagle perked up and turned around on her perch, and then launched herself toward the audience. The final 50-yard flight drew gasps from the crowd as the eagle flared out her wings, all 7-feet of them, to slow down before making another perfect landing.

The appreciative crowd, most of them donors to the science center, erupted with applause. The rain, which was falling even harder now, didn’t seem to matter anymore as Krawcke and the eagle put on the flight demonstration for the second time with perfect precision - several months of hard work weren’t about to be derailed by a little precipitation.

When they finished the second demonstration, Krawcke put the eagle back on her arm and marched up the grassy hill to the center wearing the same smile that never seems to leave Krawcke’s face, whether she’s working with the eagle, or any of the raptors at the science center. She is proud of what she has accomplished with the eagle and the other birds at the center.

“This is exactly what I wanted to do.” Krawcke says of her life’s work.

Krawcke and the eagle after a successful Mayfly.

Krawcke knows that what she is doing is both physically and mentally good for the bird, but she is also astounded and impressed and curious about the eagle every day she’s around her.

“There is nothing frivolous in their life like we have in ours.” Krawcke said. “Everything about them is about survival … and I admire that.”

Thanks to Krawcke, a crowd of donors standing in the rain; now admired it too.

Note: To see a gallery of images of Francie and the eagle, check out this link on my photo website:

http://lonhorwedelphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/Learning-to-Fly/G0000poBpHDppWn8/

Jobless Journal Part II: Break on Through (To the Other Side)

2011-04-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

I am the Lizard King - I can do anything! (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

It takes a while to get used to the fact that you don’t have to go to work. Apart from the occasional long weekend or a week off here or there, working is all I’ve ever known for the better part of 31-years.

So I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised that I still found myself getting up early every morning (had to get the kids ready for school anyhow) and I still found myself wondering what it was I had to go and shoot that day. Routine, I found, was harder to break than I thought.

With no real plans and nothing to photograph, I tried to keep my camera skills somewhat sharp by shooting my kid’s Rec & Ed basketball games. I must admit it was a bit strange taking pictures of little kids playing ball instead of Division I college players, but it was kind of fun and definitely long overdue (I should take more pictures of my kid’s activities, maybe now I will.)

By the end of my second full week of unemployment, I was feeling a little more relaxed about my situation and I actually began enjoying my newfound freedom. I felt confident that the uncertainty I’d been feeling was only a blip on the radar, and I would be much better served to embrace this time in my life rather than fear it. At least that was the mindset I took into last Saturday – a day that morphed from fairly normal to anything but, before the clock struck 12.

It all started with me feeling pretty crappy. Not emotionally, but physically. All the stress and lack of sleep associated with my mid-life upheaval had left me battling a horrible cold. Saturday was day three of the cold and by then I was well past the worst of it – the sore throat, watering eyes and runny nose part - now I was on to the thick-congested-yellow-snot phase.

This part of a cold is actually my favorite part of being sick. Not so much because I love blowing huge gobs of snot out of my nose (which I do) but more because of what the cold does to my voice. I’m not what you’d call a good singer, in fact, I’m not ashamed to say that I pretty much suck (my own mother used to tell me I couldn’t carry a tune even if I had a bucket) but for whatever reason, when I’m in the throes of a head cold, usually day three, something wonderful happens to my vocal chords, and not only does my speaking voice become much deeper (think James Earl Jones or Barry White) but suddenly, I can sing too.

Notes I can only dream of hitting when I’m feeling healthy, suddenly become routine when I’m all stuffy and I can’t breathe - high notes, low notes, and everything in between - nothing is out of range when I’m reaching for a Kleenex! It’s the one highlight of every cold I’ve ever suffered – sure I feel like crap, but man can I sing.

This phenomena, coupled with my newfound outlook on life, came into play in a strange way by night’s end, but first came a day filled with Rec & Ed basketball and the year-end team party that followed.

My son’s team crushed their opponent to finish the season in second place with a 7-3 record, so everyone was happy as we headed to the party hosted by the team’s coach. The party was an interesting mix of kids and adults mingling in the same space, but in different realities – a theme that would continue throughout the rest of the day and most of the night. Before long, the adults soon became the kids, and the kids became the adults.

This point was hammered home when I overheard one of the moms talking about the team party from last year where one of the dads was showing off his head-standing prowess. Without thinking I blurted out, “Hey, I can stand on my head too.”

The moms all laughed.

“No, I’m serious,” I said, “I really can.”

Before I knew what had happened, I found myself in a head-standing competition against another dad as all the kids at the party became petrified with embarrassment.

It had been a while since I last stood on my head, maybe a few years, maybe more, but head stands are sort of like riding a bicycle, once you’ve got it down you never really forgot how to do it, and unlike singing, head stands were something I was pretty good at.

I learned how to do them at a fairly young age, probably 8 or 9. My mom taught me when she was taking yoga classes in the early 1970’s. (That sort of thing was really taking off among the hippie set back then, and my mom was definitely a hippie.) I got the hang of it fairly quickly, and before long I was adding my own signature moves to the standard head stand, including scissor kicks, torso twists and my favorite – slowly dropping my legs down until they were parallel to the ground, turning my body into a perfect “L” and then slowly raising them back up until I was bone-straight once again.

I didn’t do headstands all that long, maybe a few months, but that was all it took before the skill was ingrained into me, apparently forever (I keep waiting for the day when I can no longer do them, but so far they seem just as easy at age 45 as they did when I was a kid).

Staying in balance - even at 45! (Photo by Eamon Horwedel)

The season-ending party was no different. Once the gauntlet had been thrown down, I quickly took off my jacket and my hooded sweatshirt. I emptied my pockets of loose change, car keys and anything else that might tumble out once I was inverted, and then I looked for a spot in the middle of the basement floor where I had enough room to perform my routine.

After I found a section of floor to my liking, I got down on all fours. The carpet was nice and plush and really soft. It couldn’t have been more perfect. The one thing I hadn’t taken into account was my cold, but once I planted my head into the carpet, put my knees on my elbows and then slowly raised my feet skyward, the congestion in my head magically disappeared. (Standing on one’s head, it seems, is much more effective than Vick’s Vapo Rub when it comes to nasal decongestion.)

Once I was in a perfect headstand, a smattering of applause broke out among the parents, but I was far from done. After 15 or 20 seconds, I began my routine of more intricate positions. First came my scissors move, which was followed by more applause, then came the torso twist, and even more applause, and then came the real show-stopper, my parallel leg drop, which left everyone speechless. Finally, after several minutes, I lowered my legs back into their starting position, slowly raised my head off the floor and then suspended my body off the ground in a triangle formation using nothing but my hands. The place went nuts.

The other dad tried his best to match my upside-down prowess, but he crashed and burned in less than 10-seconds, drawing roars of laughter. It was all in good fun, and just what I needed to pick up my spirits. After that, the rest of the party was fairly normal – the kids ran around the house and played as the adults either chatted by the bar or watched Butler beat Florida in the NCAA Basketball Tournament on the large screen TV in the host’s basement.

As the evening wore on and the party began to fade, my wife informed me that I needed to take our middle daughter Ella to yet another party at her friend’s house on the other side of town – a karaoke party.

This was like dying and going to Heaven for Ella, who just so happens to be a good singer – maybe too good, because she never stops singing from the minute she wakes up until the minute she goes to bed. (I can’t say for sure if she continually sings while she’s in school, but I wouldn’t doubt it). She was giddy with excitement when I dropped her off, and the party’s hostess was just as giddy.

“When you stop back to pick up Ella, make sure you come in and have a beer," She said, "and maybe you could sing something too!"

I graciously nodded and said. “We’ll see – maybe.” But in my mind I was thinking, “No frickin’ way.”

I promised my wife I’d pick Ella up at 10 o’clock, but the phone rang at 9:30 and there was my daughter on the other line, begging with all her might to stay until 10:30.

“Dad, this party is sooooo much fun!” She said. “Can’t I stay until 11?”

This time it was my wife who was saying “No frickin’ way!”

Eventually we all compromised on 10:45.

So there I was, at quarter till 11, standing on the same porch I’d stood four hours earlier dropping off my daughter, only now I was picking her up and when the party’s hostess opened the door she was even giddier.

“GREG!” She squealed with delight. I looked over my shoulder to see if someone named Greg was standing behind me. No one was there.

“Come on in.” She said. “Take off your coat, grab a beer, you can’t leave until you sing – pharrtty rrhules.” She slurred happily.

“Yeah, well, I wish I could, but I really just came to pick up Ella.” I replied.

“Oh Greg!” She laughed. “You’re succhh a khhidder!”

The hostess was obviously a little tipsy, but she was a happy drunk, and one who apparently wouldn’t take no for an answer. Before I could decline the offer a second time, she had me by the arm and was leading me to the basement, where once again, for the second time that day, there was a strange mix of children and adults co-mingling in the very same space, but in a much different way.

“Hey everyone, Greg is here!” She announced as we walked into the party that definitely was in full swing.

Those who didn’t know me waved and nodded, those who did know me looked over my shoulder to see if some guy named Greg was standing behind me. He wasn’t.

“You guyzzz rrreeemember Grrreggg, rrrright?" She said. "He's susshhh a ghhoood shingggerrr! Heee’ssh goinggg to sshhinggg again tooonighhht!”

A cheer went up from the drunken crowd. My daughter Ella walked up to me and said, “Dad, who the hell is Greg?”

“I guess I am.” I said.

I’ve never been a big believer in reincarnation, but apparently everyone at the party who didn’t know me seemed to remember me from a previous occasion. So, near as I could figure, I’d either lived a previous life as some guy named Greg, or some guy named Greg, who looked a helluva a lot like me, had been at one of their previous karaoke parties and had really lit the joint up. Either way, it didn't look like I was going to get out of there without giving some kind of vocal performance.

“Dad, you’re not really going to sing are you?” Ella asked, somewhat horrified at the thought.

“Hell no, I’m not gonna sing!” I said.

Ella breathed a sigh of relief.

But then I winked at her and said. “But I think Greg just might.”

“Dad, don’t do it,” she pleaded, “it’s going to be soooo embarrassing.”

“Relax.” I said, “Take a look around Ella - everyone here is so plowed they’re not going to remember any of this anyway, and I’ve already embarrassed you in front of every one of your friends, so what have you got to lose?”

Ella knew it was a fight she couldn’t win, so she tried to limit the damage by looking through the karaoke songbook for me to try and find something I might actually be able to sing. That’s when I remembered my good luck – I was in day three of my head cold! Of all the nights to stumble unarmed into a karaoke party, this may have been the best.

“Don’t worry Ella.” I said confidently. “As long as they have some Doors tunes in that book, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

I knew if there was any singer whose vocal range wouldn’t present a problem for me, it was Jim Morrison’s, and with my cold, any song by The Doors was fair game. I really wanted to sing “Love Me Two Times” but the book had only three songs by The Doors: “Break on Through,” “Hello, I Love You,” and “Light My Fire.”

Of the three, “Light My Fire” seemed the easiest, so I told the karaoke master to cue me up. He did, but he told me I was 15th in the cue line.

"Fifteeeenthhhh!!!" The hostess said, somewhat shocked at the potential lengthy wait, " Thhisss is Grrreggg!!! You bedderrrrr mooove' emmm up, dammittt!!"

Apparently that did the trick because the next thing I knew I was on-deck.

Most of the songs I’d heard from my brief time in the basement were sappy, modern, top 40-Justin Bieber-type tunes sung by groups of pre-teen girls who stood a good five-feet behind the microphone rendering them barely audible, so the thought of unleashing some classic Jim Morrison on the unsuspecting crowd was a pleasant one.

I had a few minutes to think about the song I was about to sing and sort of get into the Jim Morrison mode. This was a bit of a problem since I was nearly twice Morrison’s age when he originally sang “Light My Fire” and let's face it, not only was I way older than Morrison, but I was nowhere near as Adonis-like. Heck, I’d never even seen a real life pair of leather pants let alone worn any. The last thing I wanted to do was bring shame to one of my favorite singers, (or my daughter) but I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing, even without leather pants, and I was willing to give it a try.

Before I knew it, the karaoke master was announcing my name … sort of.

“And now, ladies and gentleman, please welcome Greg to the stage as he sings “Light My Fire” by The Doors.

Without really trying, I’d somehow become the center of attention, but for some reason I didn’t mind. I took off my coat and handed it to Ella, and then I walked calmly to the makeshift stage in the middle of the basement where for maybe the first time that night, I removed the microphone from its stand and actually used it as it was meant to be used - namely somewhere closer to the singer's mouth than five feet away.

“Check one – check two.” I blurted into the mike, and for the first time since I’d arrived at the party, a healthy dose of volume bounced off the basement walls, startling everyone into attention - even the seventh grade crowd who'd never even heard of Jim Morrison, or The Doors.

“All right,” I said, “let’s do this!”

The karaoke master cued the music and immediately the song’s lyrics flashed on a projection screen hung on the far wall of the basement. I didn’t need the lyrics. I already knew the song by heart, so I ignored the projection screen and began to roam freely about the basement as the familiar opening organ riff to the classic tune filled the air. Without missing a beat, I began to smoothly croon the opening lines of the song:

You know that it would be untrue

You know that I would be a liar

If I was to say to you

Girl we couldn’t get much higher

I don’t know if it was any good or not, but it seemed pretty effortless, and I was having fun doing it.

Come on baby light my fire

Try to set the night on fire

Try to set the night on … Figh - uuurrrrrr!!!

I was really feeling it now, and the sheer volume of my deliverance pulled everyone in – even those at the bar in the far corner of the basement. The seventh grade crowd looked on in confusion, but I knew it was about to get even better after the song’s instrumental break.

The time to hesitate is through

No time to wallow in the mire

Try now we can only lose

And our love become a funeral pyre

I felt like I was in fine form. The notes were easy to hit, my voice felt rested and strong, it was if the "Lizard King" himself was channeling through me. I cruised through the next few stanzas gathering momentum along the way, making sure to amp up the volume and the intensity of my voice with each line. Finally, as the song drew closer to the end, it was time to really cut loose. I’d been waiting for this moment all along, and now it was here:

Come on baby light my fire

Try to set the night on fire

TRY TO SET THE NIGHT ON ---- FIGH--UUURRRRrrrrr!!!

The last line brought down the house. Even Ella seemed surprised that her old man could pull it off. I think she may even have been proud of me. The party hostess came over and congratulated me.

“GRRREGG!!!" She screamed, "Thhhat was awweshomme!!!

My ode to the past must have sparked something in the crowd, because the very next selection was Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”, but I was done singing for the evening. I’d had enough excitement for one day - from head-stand contests with basketball player's dads, to emulating Jim Morrison in front of adulating, drunken adults and shell-shocked, sober seventh graders, I was pretty sure there wasn’t much more I could expect, or want, from a 24-hour period, so I gathered up my daughter, said goodbye to everyone at the party, and went back to being Lon.

I think Greg would have been proud.

Jobless Journal - Trying hard to look up in a down world

2011-04-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

Life is funny that way - bad for the squirrel, good for the vulture. It's all in how you look at it. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I never considered myself to be a negative thinker. In my mind, at least, I always thought I was fairly positive. But the way you perceive yourself and the way you actually are don’t always jive – sort of like seeing yourself in a full length mirror at a hotel room right after you get out of the shower and you realize that no matter how svelte you thought you were, the truth is you’re packing on 10-extra pounds.

And that’s how it is with my outlook on life. In my mind things are just rosy, but when I stop and actually listen to the crap that comes out of my mouth, I can’t help but realize I’m really one cynical son-of-a-bitch.

This, I think, may be a problem as I try and plow forward on my own as a freelance photographer. Mainly because another huge personality flaw I possess is my uncanny ability to speak whatever is on my mind, no matter how proper the time or the place. Some folks find this trait refreshing, I guess because they always know where I stand. Others maybe not so much, especially when what I’m spewing forth is laced with a healthy dose of “that sucks” or “what a bunch of shits!”

Fortunately, these past three weeks of being unemployed have left me with plenty of time to not only do some job searching, but also some soul searching, which hopefully will give me the opportunity to improve not only myself, but my outlook on life as well.

I’m no shrink, but it seemed logical that the first step in trying to change my negativity and cynicism might be to find out why the hell I’m that way in the first place.

It was time to ask myself some hard questions. To peer into my past and find out why I’m like this. Could I simply be a creature of heredity? After all, my old man certainly isn’t the most positive guy on the planet. In fact, he can be such a downer I’m surprised he hasn’t put in a job application to take over for the Grim Reaper if or when the time comes.

Could it be that I’m simply turning into my old man?

As I thought about that harder, I remembered that my dad, the Grand Poobah of Doom himself, once told me that I was too “peptimistic.” (I wasn’t really sure where he came up with that one, but my old man’s vocabulary consists of hundreds of almost, but not quite actual words he tosses around with such clarity and assurance it makes him sort of a redneck version of Confucius.) It was a slap, to be sure. My own father, the most negative man on the planet, was telling me that I had a ruddy outlook on life - and that was when I was still in high school!

Since there’s nothing I can do about heredity, I tried to put those questions out of my head and focus on other factors contributing to my doomsday attitude. For example, does geography play a part? More specifically, does being a Cleveland sports fan have anything to do with my overall malaise?

It may sound stupid, but I’ve never known anything in my life but losing and being let down. I’m like one of Pavlov’s dogs in that way. As soon as a Cleveland Browns or Indians game starts, immediately I start to cower with fear waiting for the next way they'll figure out how to lose. It’s how I’ve been conditioned for 45-years. I don’t even know how to react if they win.

Maybe that’s why I felt such a sense of relief last March when my mother died, or this March when I was laid off. It was the worst-case scenario, but it’s also what I expected so it felt comfortable to me in a perverse way. Sadly, over the years, I’ve become used to gray skies and shitty weather ... of coming in second and expecting less.

And yet …

Well, that’s the funny part. I always thought of myself as being a positive thinker, of being able to do whatever I put my mind to, despite my cynicism. I have confidence in my abilities. I love to compete and I love to win - but I don’t mind getting beat either. I don’t take myself too seriously and I love to laugh. Plus, I think I have a pretty good perspective on what’s really important in life.

It’s a strange dichotomy being a cynic with a positive outlook. Like I told my dad back in high school, “Yeah, well, maybe you’re right – maybe I am peptimistic, but I like to think I’m optimistic too - let’s just say I’m an optimistic pessimist!”

This confused my father quite a bit until I explained it to him like this: “Life sucks Dad… but it could be worse!”

And that’s the mantra I’ve carried with me my whole life. Certainly, I’ve been dealt a great deal of heartache and hardship these past few years, and certainly I’ve done my fair share of complaining about life in general, but I’m proud to say that I don’t think I’ve complained all that much about the hand I’ve been dealt or the fairness of events that have taken place. I know there are no guarantees in life and I know things aren’t necessarily going to get any better, and, in fact, may even get worse. (If the Cleveland Browns have taught me anything, it is that.)

I always tell my kids that no matter how good you are at something, chances are there is someone else who is even better. But the good news, I tell them, is the same can be said in reverse – no matter how bad you are at something, there’s always someone who sucks even more!

For their sake, and my own, I’m going to try my damnedest to try and think more positively about the future. To that end I’ve vowed to stop watching the evening news and instead read a book. I also will no longer willingly root for the Cleveland Browns (or any other professional Cleveland sports team for that matter). In addition, I will only talk about the weather when it is sunny and warm with a gentle breeze and I will always drive safely with both hands on the wheel, without uttering so much as a whisper if someone cuts me off, tailgates me, or passes me on the right shoulder.

From this point forth, I also promise not to honk my horn or call someone a "selfish bastard" as I wait patiently behind them at a drive through ATM machine while they fuddle around in their purse and/or wallet for a good five minutes after they’ve finished their transaction before pulling up.

It won’t be easy. It’s hard not to be at least a little cynical from time to time, and to be honest, people who exude that smiley, positive, cheery “everything is so great” attitude tend to irritate the crap out of me and immediately make me think they’re completely full of shit. But from now on, I really, truly am going to try and be more positive, because let’s face it, things haven’t been going all that great lately. In fact, you might say things really suck right now.

The good news, I suppose, is that it could be worse!

Laid Off - Not working can be hard work!

2011-03-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

Hanging out with nothing to do. Is it Heaven? Or is it Hell? (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

My mother always said it was better to be “pissed off” than to be “pissed on.” I always liked that saying, it made sense after all, but two weeks ago, something I never thought would happen to me, did in fact happen – I lost my job.

I was “laid off.”

A lot of things go through your mind when the carpet is pulled out from under your 26-year career as a photojournalist, but the one thing I couldn’t seem to shake from my head after the whole thing went down was the single burning question: Is it better to be “laid off” than to be “laid on?” Because being laid off certainly feels a lot like you’re being laid on.

It wasn’t like it was any big shock or anything, I could sense it coming for a month or so before it actually happened, but when it did happen, it still caught me by surprise. I can only relate the experience to watching a terminally ill loved one suffer for months, but when they actually die, somehow you’re still not ready for it. And like the death of a loved one, the death of a job – of a career – is just as painful, and the steps of dealing with that pain and grief are very similar.

First comes the relief. Why I felt relieved, I’m not sure, but it might have had something to do with the fact that it truly was over. No more walking on eggshells. No more uncertainty (as it pertained to my previous job). In essence, I was free and it felt pretty good, at least for a while – maybe an hour or two.

After that came another kind of uncertainty, and this one, I fear, may stick around awhile. This uncertainty leads to high anxiety – the kind that keeps you up at night while you try to find some way, any way, to think about something other than the fact that you are now unemployed for the very first time since you were 14-years-old.

But it’s not a constant. With the fear comes a dose of excitement. The “Hey, I don’t have to work today!” feeling. Unfortunately, that excitement is usually quickly replaced with the “Holy crap, I don’t have a job!” feeling of doom.

It’s a seesaw battle every day for a guy like me. It’s especially tough when you go from very much being sought after for 26-years, to suddenly no longer wanted - kind of like being Mel Gibson or Charlie Sheen, only I’m not cashing in on being bat-shit crazy.

Nobody can really predict how anything will come to an end in his or her lives, but I certainly would never have figured my last day of work would have ended the way it did – not in tears, but with a chuckle, sitting in an office being fired by the very same folks I’d photographed earlier in the day at a business expo where they were extolling on how great everything was going with our company and how the economy in Washtenaw County was on the upswing.

Well, I guess it's great for them – they’re still working.

The irony of the situation didn’t escape me, I laughed a little as they handed me my walking papers. The whole situation made me think of my mother, the very same woman who died last March nearly a year to the day I was being let go (from now on I proclaim we skip March completely and go straight to April) and even though she didn’t leave me much when she died, my mother did leave me with a sardonic sense of humor, one I knew I could rely on to help me get through this thing - how do you put a price on that?

So what now? I was already going through a full-blown mid-life crisis, now I was about to go through a full-blown mid-career crisis. What does a 45-year-old guy with mad skills do at this point in his life so he doesn’t go mad?

As it turns out, being unemployed is actually a pretty busy way of life. The filing for unemployment, trying to scrape up enough cash to buy camera gear, getting portfolios together, making calls, trying to remember to eat, sleep, and occasionally go to the bathroom, all eat up a great majority of time. It’s like I graduated from college again … or just died, I’m not really sure which.

Luckily, if my perspective was ever at stake, Mother Nature put an end to that by destroying half of Japan with an earthquake/tsunami combo the very next day, reminding me that my "so-called" problems were really just a hill of beans compared to being swept out to sea and drowned, or being slowly poisoned to death by nuclear fallout.

Who knows, maybe the Mayans were right. Maybe it’s all over in 2012 and all I gotta do is get to December and then the jig is up! (Or maybe they just got tired of making their calendar by the time they got to the year 2012 and they just stopped - hard to say).

The aftermath from the whole event has been fairly amazing, if not amusing. The other day I got a letter in the mail made out to me in scribbly children’s handwriting. There was no return address, but inside the letter was a Meijer gift card for $25 and a little typed note that said, “Please accept this gift, we feel really bad for you and your family.”

I was touched, and I did go out and buy dinner with the gift card, I just feel bad for the poor little guy (or gal) who probably envisions me standing all disheveled by the side of the road holding a cardboard sign that reads, “Will shoot family portrait for food.”

The amount of help I’ve received has only been surpassed by the amount of advice. Everyone seems to know what I should do, or at least, could do, with the rest of my life. Everyone, that is, but me.

“Now you can go and do something you’ve always wanted to do,” they tell me, “something you really love.

But what if you were already doing what you really loved? What if it was your dream job? What if the next job you get should have been your first job? You know, the one you hated so much you left it to go and do what you really wanted to?

It’s an interesting thought.

Soon, all the kind thoughts and support will begin to fade in much the same manner they fade in the weeks and months following a funeral. It's not that people won't, or don't still care, but life goes on, like it or not, whether you're alive or dead, working or unemployed.

In the meantime, I’ll try and stay a photographer and I think I’ll keep writing too; both bring me joy, and if I were to be swept out to sea tomorrow (or if the Mayans weren’t kidding around with this whole Armageddon/calendar business and the world really does come to an end in 2012) I’d rather not spend my last days doing anything other than what I’ve been doing for the past 25-years.

It’s the one thing I’m really good at and what I truly love to do.

Why change now?

Stuck - The Fine Art of Going Nowhere

2011-03-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

Floating ... sinking ... going nowhere, doing nothing ... stuck! (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Today I’m stuck.

Stuck in a rut that I can’t seem to, and don’t really want to get out of. I was stuck yesterday too. And the day before that, and the day before that.

Every dream … every thought ... stuck in neutral, trapped in mud.

Hard as I try, I keep going back to the beginning - back to square one - doing the same thing over and over and over again. Just an endless cycle of spinning my wheels … going nowhere … doing nothing.

If I died today I guess I would have had a good life - a wife, three kids, a handful of plaques and a trophy or two. But today I don’t feel lucky. Today I don’t feel blessed. Today I just feel stuck.

I thought about exercising. I thought twice.

I thought about writing something funny. Nothing came to mind.

I thought about reading a book but turned on the TV instead. Nothing was on, 135 channels but not one thing.

I folded a load of laundry and pulled the vacuum cleaner out of the closet. I never plugged it in; I just put it back in the closet and left the floors dirty.

I opened the fridge to see if there was something good to eat even though I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t find anything so I shut the door. I opened it again just to make sure.

I walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror - I was old. I washed my hands even though they weren’t dirty. I dried my hands and then looked in the mirror again. Still old.

I felt my neck for a pulse – still alive.

I walked back into the kitchen and flipped through a stack of CD’s. I opted for quiet.

I grabbed my jacket and keys and opened the door. It was raining outside. Hard.

I hung my coat in the closet and threw my keys on the kitchen table. A wasted day, a wasted week, a wasted month, a year, a life. No ambition. No motivation. No stimulation. Just emotional straightjacket, spiritual quagmire, buried-in-an-avalanche stuck.

It won’t last forever, probably not even the rest of the day, but right now I’d trade places with just about anyone else in the world.

Today I’m a loser, a whiner, and a complainer. I have no positive thoughts, not a one. Today I’m miserable and shitty.

Today I suck. I wouldn’t want to be me if I had a choice. But I don’t. I’m stuck with my no-good-rotten self for the rest of the day, probably tonight too. Maybe tomorrow will be different.

Maybe tomorrow I grease the skids and move forward, if just a little.

Maybe tomorrow I don’t look so old or feel so worthless.

Maybe tomorrow the sun comes out and dries up the rain.

Maybe I do 50 push ups and break a sweat. Maybe I eat something healthy and go for a run.

Maybe I write something funny or go for a drive. Maybe I take a good picture or chat with a stranger.

... Or maybe tomorrow I wake up and stare at the ceiling for an hour before I get out of bed. Maybe I don’t get out of bed at all. Maybe it never ends. Maybe I stay like this till the end of my days.

It’s not that great, but it’s not so bad.

Sometimes I'm fine standing still, doing nothing, going nowhere. Sometimes heaviness and doom are my friends. Sometimes it’s better being worse.

Sometimes I just want to be stuck.

But sometimes I don't.

Sleepless in Ann Arbor - Things that make me go, hmm?

2011-03-02T13:44:00.001-08:00

If only my brain had one way. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I don’t sleep much these days. Actually, I guess it’s been about 14-years since my last good night of sleep.

Back then I could blame my lack of slumber on my newborn daughter. Two years later, my second daughter was the culprit, and then 16-months after that, my son - infants, especially breastfed ones, make a night of uninterrupted, blissful sleep pretty much impossible.

The problem was once they started sleeping through the night, I found that I still couldn’t. Somewhere in those five years my body became programmed to wake up every few hours to unite a crying infant with its mother’s boob, wait for them to tank up, and then return them to their crib.

And that’s where I stand today – minus the baby, boob and crib parts.

I may have the world’s largest diseased prostate gland but I’ll probably never know because even though I routinely wake up and take trips to the pisser in the middle of the night, I’m pretty sure my prostate isn’t to blame. Sometimes a funky dream is the guilty party, but more often than not it’s my maladjusted biological clock combined with an extremely overactive brain.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to shut off my brain.

Ever.

And it’s not like every thought entering my skull that wakes (or keeps) me up at night is even worthwhile. If I stayed awake worrying about financial woes or my health or something like that, it might make sense, but usually I’m thinking about something stupid like: I wonder if everyone sees color the same way? Is my green the same as your green? What if we only both know it to be green because that’s how our brains have been trained? What if my green actually looks like your red?

This is the kind of shit that keeps me up - and when I’m up, my brain really starts a grinding.

I wonder what will keep me up tonight? (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Here’s a small sample of some random thoughts that were bouncing around my noggin this very morning between 5 and 5:15 when I awakened for no apparent reason.

How can BP pump billions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for the better part of a year and gas prices don’t budge, and even go down, but lately if a camel farts in the Middle East, gas prices shoot up 30 cents a gallon overnight?

Are people just religious because they’re afraid of death? And if so, why isn’t that fear strong enough to make us glorify Jesus with amazing paintings like the kind Caravaggio painted during the Baroque period? That was some good art!

Why is it that spring is the only season that doesn’t already feel like it’s arrived when it finally does? I mean it already feels like summer well before June 21st, and it already pretty much feels like fall by September 21st, and it for sure feels like winter long before December 21st, so why doesn’t it already feel like spring well before March 21st?

If students are smart enough to get into college (say the University of Michigan, for example) why then, aren’t they smart enough to look both ways before walking out into the street? And why is college when most of them start smoking? Certainly they’re smart enough to know that cigarettes aren’t good for them. Not to mention they’re twice as likely to drink themselves to death than any other demographic.

If I had to lose one body part, which one could I do without? What if it were just a finger? A toe? An organ? How about senses? Would I rather be blind, deaf, or dumb? Would I miss it if I couldn’t smell anymore, or would it be a blessing?

Should I get rid of my 3-iron and put another hybrid in my golf bag?

Will I ever get cancer? I wonder if I have it now but don’t know it yet? Do you not have cancer one day, and then the next day you do?

Did the folks who jumped out of the Trade Center even know what was going on at the time? I wonder if they felt a strange sense of calm as they fell to their deaths?

What if I won the lotto and threw away the ticket without ever checking my numbers? If I did win, would I really be happier, or just less broke?

Why does hair appear in so many different places on my body at different times of my life? I had plenty of hair on my head for 20-plus years, and now it’s mostly gone, but I have plenty on my chest and my back, and lately in my ears and my nose. Even my eyebrows are starting to look a little too Thomas Edison these days. My legs, however, are smooth as a baby’s ass when they used to be plenty hairy – what’s up with that?

Is my mother really dead, or is she just playing a cruel joke on all of us? Can she hear what I’m thinking right now, or is she just rotting away in her casket? I wonder how long before she’s nothing but bones?

Why do we equate heaven with the sky and the clouds, and why do we think dead relatives are always favorably looking down on us? What if they’re really disgusted by us and are hoping we don’t die soon because they’re enjoying their time away from us? If there really is a heaven, how far back does it date? I mean could Thomas Jefferson be having a tryst with Anna Nicole Smith right now? (Assuming, of course, they’re both in heaven).

What is so hard about golf that I couldn’t become a professional? I mean it’s really nothing more than getting your body to repeat the same thing over and over again with a great amount of consistency and mental fortitude. Why couldn’t I do it?

I wonder if my kids will ever get married? I wonder if any of them are gay and don’t know it yet? I wonder what they’ll be when they grow up? I wonder if they wonder what they’ll be when they grow up?

Are dreams really just little slices of what it’s like after you die? You know, not always good, but always very interesting. Or do you just fade to a black nothingness and that’s it?

If I took every day of my life when I was sick, or just had a headache, and added them all up, I wonder how many weeks, or months of my life I will have wasted feeling like crap?

When do criminals turn bad? We all start out innocent babies; at what point does someone start down the wrong path? Are some people truly just evil? How can that be?

Do people really die in their sleep, or do they wake up first in a terrified panic alone in the dark? Is drowning truly the most painful way to die? I wonder if you know you’re going to die the second before a fatal car accident? How does anyone know?

Where should I put my son in the batting order this year?

How come some people can play musical instruments so well, and other people really suck?

If the world were made up of nothing but people like me, how many businesses would go bankrupt in less than a month?

Why do dogs like humans so much?

Is anybody really, truly happy?

Why the hell can’t I just shut off my brain and go back to sleep?

Hmm? Now I have one more thing I have to think about ... CRAP!!!

Family Portrait

2011-02-23T14:18:00.000-08:00

The Horwedel kids - circa 1982. (Photo by Olan Mills Studios)

The coupon came in the mail one day in late August of ‘82. Normally, a coupon like that would be tossed in the trash (like 95% of all our other junk mail, and occasionally the actual mail too if my old man got to it first) but for some reason my mother saved this coupon and set it aside.

None of us kids paid any attention to the mail – that was mom’s job – so I don’t think any of us even noticed the coupon or what it was for. We also hadn't noticed the fact that my mother had been scheming to get us into a portrait studio for a few years. The coupon for a free sitting at Olan Mills Studio and a $15 - 8 x 10 was just the final push she needed.

“Kids, we haven’t had a family portrait in nearly five years.” She said to us, seemingly out of the blue one day. “I’ve got this coupon for Olan Mills in Sandusky, I think we should get one done before you all go back to school.”

Looking back, I can see my mom’s point. I was about to be a senior in high school, my sister Dina was off to her first year of college, my brother Lance was going to be a freshman in high school, and my other brother Duke was a seventh grader – it was hard to say when any of us would be living under the same roof again after that summer, and I think my mom wanted to make sure she marked that transitional time in her kid’s lives (and hers too) by having us sit for a formal portrait.

That was where my mother severely underestimated the amount of resistance with which her idea would be met.

“Ahh, for Christ’s sake Mom, none of us wants to wear some stupid monkey suit to some stupid portrait studio so we can roast our asses off under some hot lights for two hours!” I complained.

“Yeah Mom, Lon’s right.” Lance chimed in. “Why can’t we just set up a tripod and shoot one ourselves?”

“Because I know you guys too well.” My mom said. “You’ll probably go and do something moronic … besides, Lon can’t print color in his darkroom and Olan Mills can. Now just make your mother happy and go and do this Goddammit!”

“Fine!” I snorted, “But I’m not wearing a stinkin’ suit.”

As luck would have it, I didn’t have a suit that fit anyway. Nor, it turns out, did my brothers. We’d all been victims of growth spurts that summer (thank God) and my mother soon realized that the $15 – 8 x 10 could well cost her hundreds of dollars is she were to outfit her three sons in new suits for the portrait.

Quietly, we all breathed a sigh of relief, except, of course my mother, who wasn’t so easily deterred.

“Well, just wear dress shirts then.” She said sternly.

“Awww Mom, c’mon!” We complained in unison.

“Look, you’re getting the picture taken and you’re going to look nice.” She fired back.

“Wait – whaddaya mean ‘you’re getting the picture taken?’ Don’t you mean ‘we’re’ getting the picture taken?” I asked.

“Oh no! I’m not getting my picture taken.” My mother said, realizing for the first time that maybe we had the upper hand.

“And why not?” I asked.

My mother fished around for a good excuse, but all she could come up with was: “Because I just got my hair cut and I look like a damned squirrel.”

“Well if you ain’t doin’ it, we ain’t doin’ it!” I said.

My mother calmly lit up a cigarette, gave me her patented "evil eye" and then blew a puff of smoke in my face.

“Guess again!” She said.

It didn’t seem fair. It didn’t seem right. But we kids knew what we had to do. We loved our mother very much. We couldn't let her down. That’s why we knew it was both in her, and our, best interest to directly disobey her.

As painful as we knew it might be, we surely didn’t want to saddle my poor mother with some cheesy portrait - one that didn’t reflect the true, rebellious individuals she had raised. We needed to give her something that was uniquely us … something she could really be proud of … something she wouldn’t soon forget! A photo she would cherish for years to come – one that would more accurately reflect the individual spirit in all her kids, but most importantly, one she would never place on a mantle or a wall anywhere in the house. Even if it meant she was going to kick our asses when she saw the finished product.

Getting all four siblings on the same page was the easy part. None of us wanted any part of a formal sitting anyhow, so once we decided to change “formal” to “abnormal” we actually started looking forward to the photo session.

The first part of the ruse was for us boys to pick out dress shirts and ties from the closet we shared, making sure we complained every step of the way so my mother wouldn’t become suspicious. My sister actually orchestrated the whole thing, and for the first time in our childhood, we actually worked together as a team. It wasn’t exactly "Oceans 11" or anything, but it was pretty exciting. There we were, trying to pull a fast one on our mother – the same woman who had brought all of us into the world - and the same woman who let us know as often as possible she could just as easily take us out.

Picking out clothes we had no intention of wearing was easy - picking out clothes we actually wanted to wear proved a little more daunting. My sister kept waffling back and forth between something slutty Goth, or something slutty punk, eventually settling for a hybrid of the two complete with a plastic lobster. My brother Lance quickly chose a “British rock star” look, which wasn’t much of a stretch since he was a really good guitarist already. My youngest brother Duke had his sights set on a military look, which also wasn't much of a problem until he threatened to boycott the whole thing when we told him he couldn’t bring real weapons to the sitting. We got him to change his mind when we told him he could smoke one of my dad’s cigars instead.

I, unfortunately, had no idea what the hell I was going to wear. I toyed with the idea of showing up in just my underwear since I had been a notorious streaker as a child, but my sister had her reservations about the photographer even taking a photo of us dressed as we were, let alone mostly nude.

Eventually I settled on a very unoriginal “We are the 80’s” look, complete with a dorky headband it looked like I stole from Olivia Newton John, and an open shirt with an arrowhead necklace I actually did steal from my dad.

Once our outfits were chosen, we stuffed them into a gym bag and hid them in the back of our 1976 Gran Torino station wagon. As luck would have it, my mother scheduled our photo session on a weekday in the early afternoon, meaning my dad would still be at work. Our other stroke of luck happened to be the fact that our mother didn’t drive - that and she was more than happy to get us the hell out of the house for a few hours, meaning she wouldn’t be along for the session either.

Unsupervised, it was our responsibility to make good on our promise to our mother, but it was even more important to make good on our mission to remain ourselves.

A mile out of town, I quickly pulled the station wagon off the road into a cornfield I often went parking with my high school girlfriend. Once safely out of view, my brothers, my sister and I, changed out of our dress clothes and into our official portrait session attire. If any of us had second thoughts, none of us voiced them.

We remained nervously quiet the rest of the drive to Sandusky. I think we were more afraid of getting into trouble from the photographer than we were my mom. At that point it didn’t matter. We pulled into the Olan Mills parking lot without saying a word. My sister checked her hair and makeup in the rearview mirror one last time as I grabbed the coupon off the front seat. Lance snatched his guitar out of the back of the station wagon and slammed the tailgate shut. Duke stepped out of the car, glanced out over Lake Erie, and lit his cigar.

The four of us walked shoulder to shoulder toward the studio. As we approached the front door, a well-dressed family of four who had just finished their session, exited the studio. They froze, somewhat horrified at our sight. The dad grabbed up his wife and two little girls, both dressed in pink frilly dresses, and pulled them away from us.

“Excuse me sir.” I said politely.

My brother Duke just tipped his army helmet and calmly said, “Good day, Ma’am.”

Behind us we heard the nice family of four scurrying through parking lot, followed by the sound of slamming doors and tires squealing. Ahead of us we heard the gasp of the studio receptionist when she saw us walk into the waiting room.

“Is my three o’clock here yet Phyllis?” The photographer shouted from the studio in the back room.

Phyllis wasn’t quite sure if we were the three o’clock, or if we were there to rob the joint. My sister and I assured her that we meant no malice, and we were, indeed, her three o’clock appointment. While we were talking to Phyllis, the photographer popped his head in to see what was taking so long. When he caught sight of us he stopped dead in his tracks and did a double take.

Duke snapped his heels together and saluted him.

A moment of awkward silence followed as the photographer looked us over. Phyllis waited for someone to say something or tell her what to do. Silence continued to hang in the air when a huge ash broke off the end of Duke’s lit cigar and flitted down onto the floor. Seconds later, the photographer erupted in laughter.

Soon, we all were laughing - even Phyllis (nervously).

“Come on in kids.” The photographer said, still chuckling and shaking his head in disbelief. “But son, first you have to put out that cigar.”

In the end, everything worked out just fine, and even though he made my brother put out his cigar (he did let him keep it in his mouth) I’d like to think we made that photographer’s day. He still posed us in an awfully formal fashion, but in some ways it made the picture even more funny and unique.

After the shoot was over, we drove back to the same cornfield and changed back into our duds. When we arrived back at the house my mother asked us how things went.

“Ahh … just fine." I said, "It wasn’t so bad after all.”

Like I said earlier, the mail was always my mother’s thing, so none of us knew for sure when D-Day would arrive, we just knew we were in for an ass-whoopin’ when it did. Then, one day while we were watching TV in the living room, we heard my mother crying in the kitchen. Not knowing what possibly could be wrong, we went to check it out, and there, on the kitchen table were roughly eight proofs from our photo shoot.

Slowly, we began backing away, fully expecting her to wield a wooden spoon from underneath the table and start smacking us upside our heads. But she was unarmed (not even a measuring cup) and she couldn’t stop crying. Soon, we realized she was crying from laughter.

We couldn’t believe it, our plan had actually worked! We’d directly disobeyed her wishes by trying to capture the essence of our individualism with our quirky portrait and our mother seemed to truly appreciate it.

My mother liked the portrait so much she proudly displayed it in our house right up until the day she died last March. The week she died, my brothers, my sister and I, found ourselves under the same roof for the first time in a long time, just like my mother had predicted nearly 30-years earlier.

We looked through a lot of family photo albums that week, but I think I can safely say our favorite photo came from that hot afternoon in late August, when we all piled into our Gran Torino station wagon and headed west toward the Olan Mills Studio in Sandusky, Ohio, with the warm summer wind in our hair, and cigars a blazin'!

(For the record, we had so much fun the first time at the Olan Mills Studio; we actually made a repeat performance the very next year – with coupon in hand, of course.)

Pet Peeves - This is no cat fancy!

2011-02-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

Meet our family cat Levi - the bane of my existence! (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line I’ve grown to pretty much disdain our family cat.

It might have something to do with the fact that I’m the only one who actually feeds the damn thing. My kids are so neglectful, I often wonder how long the cat would survive if I did nothing to keep it alive. A week? Two weeks? A month?

There could be tumbleweed blowing around in his water dish and they wouldn’t bat an eye. The cat literally could be sitting half-dead, skeletal-like, with an empty food dish dangling from his mouth and they’d just step over him on their way to the television set.

When I bring this up with the kids, they tell me, “Dad, we give Levi (that’s his actual name) love - that’s way more important than food.”

“Great.” I tell them. “Make sure you put that in his eulogy after he drops dead from starvation!”

Of course, if they can’t bother themselves with something as simple as pouring water into a dish or putting food in a bowl, you can only imagine the amount of neglect they show to his litter box. Yup, that’s right, I’m the lucky one who gets stuck cleaning up not only his litter box, but also the floor next to the litter box where he routinely dumps about 85% of his turds, saving the other 15% to slide down the side of the box in a lovely brown trail of impossible to clean nastiness.

On top of his crap (which I normally let harden into hockey puck status before taking his pooper scooper and flicking it into an open plastic bag with a wrist shot Bobby Orr would be proud of) he also leaves a weekly average of at least three or four piles of cat puke all over the house. (Although in the cat’s defense – he does manage to avoid all carpeted surfaces, aiming for the hardwood floors in the hallway, or the cement floor in the basement instead.)

Even with all the messes, I might be inclined to still sort of like the cat (he was extremely cute as a kitten, after all) if not for all of his annoying “cat” habits. For example, he has this way of driving me nuts with his incessant meowing. I suppose it’s not his fault - it’s not like he can talk and tell me what’s on his mind, but when I’ve fed him, changed his litter, and cleaned up his vomit, why the hell can’t he just leave me alone so I can eat my breakfast in peace?

I’ve come to realize that he’s a very finicky bastard, even by cat standards. He won’t eat anything in his food dish that’s more than 15-minutes old; it has to be fresh out of the bag or he won’t touch it. Have you seen the price of cat food? He obviously doesn’t know he's middle-class.

He also has this uncanny knack of clawing everything in the house that once was made of beautifully stained hardwood until it’s his own personal pile of kindling. Something in that cat’s brain either doesn’t compute, or just doesn’t give a shit when it comes to learning because I could literally shoot him in the head with a blow dart when he’s scratching the hell out of one of our doorframes, and 10-minutes later he’ll be doing it again!

My love for yogurt is gone as well, thanks to the cat. I used to love yogurt. It was the perfect snack for me when I was trying to eat better. But now if the cat hears either the sound of a spoon coming out of the silverware drawer or the lid being pulled off a cup of yogurt, he’ll appear from out of nowhere in a millisecond, and constantly meow until you let him lick the inside of the container when you’re finished. If I don’t give it to him, the kids get all over my case, but those dimwits let him have half the container. That’s all fine and good for them; they don’t have to clean up kitty diarrhea three hours later!

Another one of his finest qualities is his amazing ability to get under my feet at the most inopportune times - like when I’m bringing a load of laundry up the basement steps. It’s no problem for him - he’s got nine lives. If I trip over his fat ass and send him flying down a flight of steps onto the concrete floor, he still has eight more to spare. I, on the other hand, have but one, and the thought of me lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the steps with my head bleeding profusely into a fresh load of whites, isn’t necessarily a good one.

But the worst part about that damn cat is that he actually likes me, and I wished he didn’t. If I go to work out, he’s there to annoy me. When I come home from work, he’s at the front door wanting attention. If I take off my shoes or my slippers, he lies on top of them and puts his paws inside the heels. He never gives me any space. Never. I can’t even begin to tell you how uncomfortable it is to feel his stupid, little cat eyes boring through the back of my head while he sits and stares at me from the foot of the bed when I’m trying to get intimate with my wife. YEECCH!!!

I feel like I’m turning into my dad. He’s hated cats for as long as I can remember. My only memory of him even touching a cat was when he was carrying one of them through the house by the scruff of their neck muttering, “Stay out of the Goddamned house!” before jettisoning the poor cat out the back door.

But I never used to be like this. I actually liked cats when I was a kid. We had tons of cats when I was growing up – most were the outdoor variety, thanks to my dad, and some weren’t around long enough to even earn a name, but some were so beloved that not only were they given a name, but we’d sneak them inside the house past my dad where soon they’d became a vital part of our family. Cats like Cupid, Moose, Cisco, Uncle Smokey, Winifred, Fourfeet, and Fandango. I remember them all fondly, even though most of them met some horrifying fate.

Fandango’s death, in particular, was a fairly gruesome one, but it didn’t stop my mother from using it as a learning tool. Apparently, when I was real little I used to play a little too close to the street for my mother’s comfort, so when poor Fandango came out on the losing end of a game of chicken with a Ford Maverick, she jumped at the chance to teach me a lesson by scooping the poor cat’s mangled corpse off the road with a snow shovel, and shoving it in my 5-year-old face.

“SEE –THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU PLAY TOO CLOSE TO THE ROAD!!” She screamed, as one of Fandango’s eyeballs rolled out of his crushed skull and off the end of the shovel.

It wasn’t exactly a fond memory, but I must admit, I did stay away from the road after that.

Cupid arrived at our house shortly after Fandango’s "educational" death. She was easily the prettiest cat we ever owned - a beautiful calico with long hair and green eyes. She also was the meanest bitch of a cat in the entire town of Berlin Heights. Many a dog bore the scar of her claws on their nose, and there wasn’t a tomcat in town she didn’t f#*k up a time or two if they got too close to her when she wasn’t in heat. Still, somehow she managed to birth several litters of kittens in her lifetime, so I guess she couldn’t have been all that bad.

Two of those kittens were Crisco and Cisco. Both were from the same litter and both were snow white carbon copies of one another, only Crisco had long hair, and Cisco had short hair. Unfortunately, Cisco didn’t last long, about a year I guess before he met his untimely demise thanks to the errant riding-mower skills of our elderly and somewhat blind neighbor, Colonel Hine. Crisco, however, lived for nearly 20-years before he died, growing to be so gargantuan (23-pounds) that we actually renamed him Moose.

Moose was always my favorite cat - a big, white, pillowy fella who loved to play with my long blonde hair when I was a kid, especially when it was wet. He was a gentle giant whose only weakness was the taste of fresh baby rabbits. This presented a bit of a dilemma for my siblings and me because we loved Moose a lot, so we hated the fact that he forced us to play goalie on him with a broomstick whenever he would to pluck a freshly born bunny from its nest by our neighbor’s barn and bring it back to our house where he would devour it under our back porch.

Moose - Nice cat? or bunny killer? (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

We were the rabbit’s only hope - his last line of defense. If we could swat Moose upside the head with the broom and make him drop the bunny before he got under the latticework of the porch, we often could save it and return it to its nest. If not, there was nothing we could do except plug our ears to try and drown out the bunny’s high-pitched squealing until Moose delivered the fatal blow and settled in for some rabbit stew.

Uncle Smokey was charcoal gray and actually was Moose’s uncle. He went from being one of the coolest looking cats you ever saw, all fluffy and smooth, to one of the mangiest - and in only a few years! My mom always thought he had some rare feline disease. Whatever the case; he had one serious case of cat B.O. (if that’s even possible). It got to the point where we couldn’t let the poor guy anywhere near the house after a while. I’m sure he didn’t understand it, but he really stunk. We even toyed with the idea of painting a white stripe down his back to see if a family of skunks might take him in. But it was no use; scrawny, smelly, and unwanted, Uncle Smokey disappeared one day in the spring of 1976, only to be found later that summer in the woods behind our house decomposing on the rocks in Old Woman’s Creek.

Winifred was a carbon copy of Cupid, only years younger and much smaller. Her claim to fame was nearly slashing out my brother Lance’s throat one day in a typical fit of cat personality change that made Sybil look fairly balanced. One second she was purring contently as he cradled her in his arms, and the next second, without any warning, she went totally loco and Velcroed herself to his neck with her razor-sharp claws.

Lance never touched Winifred again, but he did write a song about her, changing her name a little and singing to the tune of “Wild Thing.” It went something like this:

“Wine-freed … dum, dum, dum-dum, dum, dum … You make my neck bleed!!

Fourfeet was around about the same time as Winifred. Oddly enough, it also was the same time the movie “Dances With Wolves” was popular, so we spent the better part of that year either naming, or renaming everything we saw, Native American style. For example, my brother took to calling me “Head Like Egg” and I started calling him “Breath Like Shit.”

I’m not really sure if Fourfeet was male or female - we never really bothered to check because we were to preoccupied wondering how in the hell it wound up with two extra paws on its front feet. Fourfeet didn’t last long, but I don’t think he (or she) met some horrible end. Come to think of it, neither did Winifred. Maybe the two of them ran off together, I’m not really sure. I just know I came home from college one day and both were gone. From that point on they were known only as “Odd Tracks in Snow” and “Claws Like Razor.”

Maybe I liked all those cats when I was a kid because I never had to anything more than just love them and have fun with them (And boy did we have fun. I’ll never forget the day my brothers and I decided to float a fresh batch of kittens off our sun porch with my G.I. Joe parachute. My mother just about had a coronary when little meowing kittens began floating down past the kitchen window while she was doing the dishes. But we knew what we were doing - they all landed softly, perfectly unharmed in the flowerbed by the side of the house). But my dad didn’t have to take care of them either, so I’m not really sure why he hated cats so much.

Who knows, maybe when he was a kid he liked cats too and he just grew to dislike them as he got older. Maybe it’s just in my heredity to do the same, or maybe I just can’t handle getting too close to a pet that I know will soon go the way of Uncle Smokey (God, I hope not) or Fandango.

Whatever the reason, I can honestly say that none of it makes me feel any better about the prospect of cleaning a fresh load of cat shit off the basement floor tomorrow morning.

Hanging On - Remaining friends through thick and thin

2011-02-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

Acting like fools on a King's Island roller coaster - and wearing identical Tubes concert t-shirts too!

I ran into my cousin John at a Super Bowl party in Toledo, Sunday night. We hadn’t seen each other for quite a while, so I asked him how he was doing.

“I’ve never been more depressed in my whole life.” He told me.

“Must be an epidemic.” I replied.

It wasn’t exactly the best way to start off the evening, so for the next three hours we watched the Packers beat down the Steelers and tried to figure out why it was we were feeling so down.

Watching the Super Bowl and talking about sports was easy for us - talking about life was completely different - something we’d never really done all that much before. But there we were, talking more about the way we were feeling than about dropped passes or botched National Anthems - not exactly typical guy stuff.

John and I grew up down the street from each other in our small hometown of Berlin Heights, Ohio. He was a year older and a grade ahead of me in school, but for most of our childhood we were pretty much inseparable. I always considered us best friends instead of cousins, and I made it a point to defend that notion whenever some neighborhood kid would tell me John couldn’t be my “best friend” because we were related.

Growing up, there wasn’t a single thing John did that I didn’t do myself. When he got a basketball, I got a basketball. When he took up golf, I took up golf. I even made it a point to try and have a crush on the same girls he liked. It was probably annoying as hell for him, but he never complained. That’s just the way it was, and that’s the way I thought it always would be. But things change, and our friendship was no different.

It all started when John graduated from high school. Without him around, it really took the air out of my senior year – a year that was supposed to one of my best. I had fun, sure, but for the very first time in my life, I suddenly felt alone.

John went to work at his dad’s gas station while I finished up my last year of school. I rarely saw him during the week, but we’d still get together nearly every weekend to play some kind of sport or go to a concert, or at least talk about them.

When I graduated from high school I got a job working as a bag boy at the local grocery store. By then, John had left the gas station to go to work at a printing press. At the end of each workday, we made it a point to meet up and hang out, usually on a golf course somewhere.

That was a great year for me. We were still young and relatively carefree, and even though we both sensed the end of our carefree days was near, it didn’t bother either one of us because we knew the groundwork of our friendship had been laid and no matter what happened from that point on, we would remain best friends the rest of our lives.

Over the next several years our communication often would flitter between very little to non-existent. It didn’t matter. We’d grown to be the ultimate guys. We didn’t need constant communication to strengthen our bond or know how important we were to each other.

When I got married in 1996, John was my best man. (I had been his in 1987). He had two kids by then and had another one on the way. He was a busy guy raising his young family, working a ton, and stressed to the bone, but he still found the time to be at my side on my big day and I appreciated it. We didn’t speak much in the days leading up to my wedding, or even at my wedding, but we did go out and play golf the day before.

Before the year was over my wife and I had our first kid. Two years later we added our second, by then, John and his wife already had three girls. Not to be outdone, my wife and I added a third child two years later. That was enough for me, but just to be sure I got a vasectomy - it was the first time in my life I actually did something before John did - a few months later, he followed suit and got one as well, but his wasn’t quite as successful and later that year, his fourth child, a girl I nicknamed “Houdini” was born.

For the past 15-years, John and I have lived similar lives in different towns and somehow we’ve managed to carry on our friendship with little or no communication, usually seeing each other only once or twice a year.

We’ve muddled through the highs and lows of life doing the best we can while trying to do things the right way. We bought houses, had kids, and lived our lives clean. Yes, we’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but for the most part our kids have turned out normal, maybe even above average, and soon, before either one of us really wants it or expects it, they’ll be out on their own.

We’re older now - much older. We’ve both seen parents die the last few years, and when the economy went down the crapper, we watched our careers go down with it.

On Sunday I guess it really hit him, and me, that not only were we both suddenly middle-aged, but also we had not a single, solitary clue of what the hell we’re doing, or how the hell we’ll cope with the challenges we’ll surely face in the coming years.

When John told me he was depressed, I immediately felt the need to talk about it. Truth is, I’d been needing to talk to somebody starting with the day I went to see a college financial advisor who told me I ought to seriously consider getting a new job – one that pays a lot more, and now I had a captive audience.

“Maybe we’re depressed because our kids are getting older.” I said just before kickoff.

“Maybe.” John replied.

“Or maybe we’re depressed because we’re getting older.” I said.

“Could be.”

“Or maybe we’re depressed because for the first time in our lives we’re parentless and everything we’ve ever worked for in our lives has blown up in our face!”

“Jesus Lon, you’re not really making me feel any better.” He said.

It felt really strange to be talking to John about something besides sports, but it also felt good.

Modern technology had cost us both our jobs. The Internet helped kill the newspaper I worked for, but it also sent a lot of magazines to an early grave too. Since John’s press printed mostly magazine ads and inserts, he never really stood a chance. Both our companies fought valiantly to stay alive, but both eventually threw in the towel.

In many ways John and I are lucky because we both found new jobs doing essentially the same thing we did at our old jobs. But neither one of us is particularly happy with our new gigs and it’s not just because we're making a lot less money.

“Did you ever think you’d work anywhere else at this point in your life?” I asked him.

“Never – I thought I’d retire at my old plant.” He said.

“Yeah, I really liked working at The News too.” I said. “I know taking pictures is taking pictures, but it just isn’t the same.”

We went on to reminisce about our time as kids – simpler times that didn’t involve anything more than a ball, a glove, and a front door to walk out of. No video games, no cell phones, no computers. If we we’re bored we’d sit on my front porch and count cars to see if there were more Ford’s driving down the street than Chevy’s. It was a time I wish my own kids could have experienced, but they too, are victims of the modern age.

“I’ve lost my daughters to technology.” I told John. “They can’t go anywhere without their stupid cell phones buzzing every five seconds.”

“I don’t get this whole texting thing.” He said.

“Tell me about it, Olivia spends half her day texting her damn boyfriend. I asked her why she doesn’t just call him and she told me texting was easier. How in the hell is texting on a microscopic keypad easier than talking?”

“Maybe they just don’t know how to talk to each other.” John said.

“Exactly! Modern technology is bass-ackward - I mean if the phone had been invented after email or texting, people would be saying, ‘You mean I don’t have to type on a keypad anymore … I can just talk to someone on this thing … THAT’S AMAZING!!!’”

“It won’t be long before nothing is printed on paper anymore either.” John added.

“Now John - why would anyone want to read a newspaper or, God forbid, a book, when they can just go online and fry their eyeballs on a Kindle or burn the tops of their thighs reading their laptop on the shitter?” I asked sarcastically. “Christ, people can’t even drive down the frickin’ street anymore without their GPS telling them where to go.”

“This must be how people felt during the industrial revolution when cars started replacing horses.” John said.

“Probably.” I said. “But at least the horses were better off.”

We both sat silently for a while and watched the end of the first quarter, then a commercial for the latest iPhone came on.

“Can you imagine how different our lives would have been if we had that crap when we were kids?” I asked.

John didn’t say anything. Neither did I. We just shook our heads at the thought and for the rest of the game we did what we’ve always done best - we talked about sports.

Tragedy Strikes Across the Street

2011-01-30T08:22:00.000-08:00

The scene out in front of my house Saturday morning. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

At 5:20 yesterday morning I was rustled awake by the sight of flashing lights dancing across the bedroom wall and the sound of men talking outside our house.

The weather forecast called for 3-4 inches of snow overnight so I figured it was just the snowplow crew taking a break before getting back to work. My wife wasn’t so sure; she hopped out of bed to take a look. Seconds later I heard her gasp, “Oh no!” from the other room.

At first I thought maybe one of the plows had smashed the living hell out of my car parked on the street, but it was much worse. The flashing lights weren’t coming from a snowplow at all, they were coming from fire trucks parked in front of our house - the neighbor’s house across the street was on fire.

The scene was so surreal that for many seconds all I could do was stare out our kitchen window in disbelief as firefighters turned our street, and part of our front lawn, into a makeshift command center.

There weren’t any visible signs of fire, but heavy smoke hung in the air transforming our entire neighborhood into a kind of giant horror movie set as silhouetted firefighters moved in and out of the haze carrying pickaxes, hoses and ladders.

It was hard to digest the information, especially at 5:20 in the a.m., but at some point, probably less than a minute or two after being awake, the photojournalist in me kicked in and I realized I probably ought to saunter outside in the cold and start making pictures.

My arrival on the scene fully equipped with camera gear via our front door took police at the scene completely by surprise. I’m sure they weren’t expecting any media coverage in such a small neighborhood, especially that early in the morning and from some guy who just walked out of the house from across the street. Without any police tape in place, the officer didn’t really know how to react to my sudden presence, nor could he tell me for sure where I could, or couldn’t be.

But there I was - in my own space really. The same street where my son and I play catch nearly every day of the summer. The same yard from where I’ve retrieved probably close to a million Wiffle balls over the years. Now it was the scene of a working fire, and for the first time in 26-years as a photojournalist, it really hit me. Not so much that a house in my neighborhood was burning down, but more the fact I didn’t really know who lived there despite the fact our front doors are less than 50-yards apart.

I asked the officer if everyone got out okay. He shook his head somberly and told me two occupants were pulled from the basement. I got a pit in my stomach. The word pulled is never a good one when you’re talking about the scene of a fire or an accident.

Exhausted firefighter exit our neighbor's house after getting the fire under control. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Just up the street two other people who lived in the house were wrapped in emergency blankets talking to officers. For the next 20 minutes I switched into autopilot and continued to photograph the scene. By this time the rest of the neighborhood was awake and congregating on the street. Most of them knew me, or of me, because of my career as a photographer at The Ann Arbor News and now at AnnArbor.com. I knew a lot of them as well, but like the folks who lived in the burning house, there were plenty I didn't know.

When I finished shooting, I went back inside and started editing photos on my laptop at the kitchen table. My wife and three kids (who now also were awake) sat on the same table peering out of the window as the scene continued to unfold across the street.

Every now and then my wife would give me updates as I continued to edit photos. I told her what the officer had told me and the first thing my wife asked me was if I knew who had died.

Sadly, I had no idea.

Shortly after 6 a.m. I called my editor and told her I had pictures from a potential fatal fire in my neighborhood. Before the hour was over, she texted me to let me know that both the victims had been resuscitated by paramedics and both had a pulse by the time they arrived at the hospital.

The normal reaction to news like that is a sigh of relief before you go on about your business pretending everything will be okay and the victims will carry on with their lives as if nothing happened. But I didn’t feel relieved at all. A pulse means nothing, especially if they were without one for as little as five, four, or even two minutes. The damage, most likely, had already been done.

Oddly enough, for the rest of the day we continued on the best we could as if nothing had happened, pretending everything would be okay. But it wasn’t normal, and everything wasn't okay.

I took my daughter to softball practice at 10 a.m., weaving in and out of the fire trucks still parked on the street to get out of the neighborhood. Only when we got back, TV crews were on the scene interviewing my wife for the six o'clock news.

At 1:30, we took my son to his basketball game. He scored 13-points and even canned a half-court shot at the buzzer that sent the crowd into euphoria. When we got home, he and his friend played snow football in our front yard, only across the street investigators continued combing the scene of the fire. Police tape now encircled the block and the insurance disaster team also was on site boarding up all the house windows. The scene reminded me of a picture I once saw where kids were happily playing soccer in the middle of a war- torn street in Iraq.

There was a pall hanging over us the rest of the afternoon – a "flatness," my wife called it. It may have been suppressed for a while, but it never really went away. Any time we started feeling normal, the campfire smell that still hung in the air, or a glance out the kitchen window would quickly bring it back. Our normal activities we’re merely distractions between a trip to the store to buy new batteries for our smoke detectors and a sit-down session with the kids where we drew up a very detailed fire escape plan.

It was that strange kind of tug-of-war all day: Normal life vs. the "House-across-the-street-caught-fire-and-may-have-killed-two-of-your-neighbors" life. Cars came and went for much of the day, most stopping to gawk at the scene before slowly driving away. People came and went too, some were relatives of the house’s occupants, some just curious.

Later that afternoon, my wife found out from the mother of one of the house’s occupants, that one of the two people pulled from the basement had, in fact, died, the other had been life-flighted to Grand Rapids in critical condition.

I found out later the man who died was a 20-year-old musician. He was one of four young people who lived in the house, but I didn’t know any of them beyond the occasional wave, or “Hey, how’s it going?” on the street. If I saw any one of them in a crowd of people, I doubt I could pick them out.

I realize now that I don’t know a lot of my neighbors. Not like when I was a kid growing up in a small town where everyone knew everyone. If I wiped out on my bicycle in front of a neighbor’s house, they’d take me in, clean the blood off my scraped up knee, give me glass of lemonade and then call my mother. They had names like Bessie Green, Wilbur Best, Martha Ritz, and Colonel Hine. Sadly, I didn’t even know the name of my deceased neighbor until it was finally reported in the news. Things just aren't the same anymore, neither here in a transient town like Ann Arbor, nor in my old, small hometown in Ohio where the likes of Bessie Green, Wilbur Best and Colonel Hine are long dead and gone.

The morning after. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Last night I thought sleeping would be an issue - as it turns out, I was so exhausted I slept just fine. This morning the sun shines brightly on our neighborhood, the sky is bright blue and a fresh coating of snow clings to the tree branches. Visually, it’s a picture-perfect winter day. Later I will make my son’s birthday cake and he will open presents. We’ll try the best we can to return to normal as he celebrates his 11th year of life.

But it won’t be easy when the smell of smoke still hangs in the air; the victim’s cars still sit in the driveway, and their garbage cans still line the street - all reminders that no amount of sunshine, blue skies, or birthday cake can bring back a young man’s life or make the blackened, smoke-charred house across the street feel any less sobering.

The Song Remains the Same - It's the audience that's changed!

2011-01-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

Robert Plant in concert January 21st in Ann Arbor. "Does anyone remember the laughter? ... Does anyone remember anything?" (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I was born in the middle of the British invasion (not the one with Red Coats and muskets, but the second one with guitars and drums). After growing up during what many may argue was the best musical period in history, I was lucky enough to exit my adolescence long before the horrors of Hip Hop, boy bands, or overproduced diva crap hit the scene.

I also was lucky enough to grow up with extremely young parents. My mom and dad were barely out of their teens when their fourth kid, my youngest brother, arrived in the winter of 1970. I can only imagine how tough it must have been for them, both financially, and emotionally, to raise my two brothers, my sister, and me, but as hard as it was, I have to believe rock and roll helped them a great deal with this chore because in every memory from my youth there’s always a record playing at high levels of volume in the background

Our family lived in a very modest house, but we did have a fairly impressive stereo for the day. There was no question that at that time stereos were miles ahead of television technologically speaking. With only three networks to choose from, no remote controls, and color quality that was still in its infancy, televisions were stone-aged compared to the hi-fi stereo equipment of the day.

Our stereo was a very expensive Philco model which we could afford only because of the huge discount my dad got by working at Ford. The stereo was housed in a beautiful mahogany cabinet roughly the size of a compact car (it was so big, I often wondered if Ford rolled the cabinets off the assembly line just like the cars at my dad’s plant). The front of the stereo cabinet was decorated with about 20 little square panels covered in some sort of red, velvety cloth that helped soften the sound coming out of the powerful speakers mounted behind them.

The turntable, all the control knobs, and a fairly God-awful AM/FM radio were located under the massive hood of the cabinet that somehow stayed in place by a very small metal hinge when it was lifted. (At least when it was new, years later, when the hinge was worn-out and worthless, the 200-pound lid became nothing more than a crude, wooden guillotine that would slam down on the back of your head and knock you senseless if you forgot to hold it open with your free arm while trying to change records with the other).

It was a great stereo in many ways. For the first several years, the sound quality was unmatched, but I liked it even more when it was older and the speakers began to fail. It gave me a much better appreciation for music when all I could hear were the background vocals, or the bass and drums of any given track. It was sort of like having my own 4-track recording studio.

Of course, having a great stereo would have been useless had it been wasted on lousy music, but my parents were true to their generation, so I was raised on heavy doses of late 60’s and early 70’s rock n’ roll.

My mother belonged to the Columbia Record Club back then, which meant we’d be getting anywhere from one, to as many as eight record albums mailed to our house in protective cardboard boxes every single week. It was like Christmas every Monday for us kids who couldn’t wait to see what was inside those cardboard boxes: The Beatles? The Stones? The Guess Who (literally)?

The problem was once the box was opened, it was ours whether we wanted it or not, and usually it was one of Columbia’s crappy selections of the week like “Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits” or “All of Andy Williams Best” - albums my mother certainly didn’t want but was forced to keep and pay for thanks to four overanxious kids who always beat her to the mail before she could send back the unopened box.

Before long, her collection of albums grew like a cancer from the corner of the living room floor until we had more LP’s than most radio stations. By the time I graduated from high school, three long vertical rows of records nearly reached the middle of the floor with 250-300 albums in each row. At times my mother would try to alphabetize them, but that would last only a while before a month’s worth of new shipments would make the task unbearable, thus forcing her to shift her tactic to put the albums into a “most played” rotation near the front of each stack.

A handful of classic LP's from my childhood. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

The rotation would vary, but most often included albums by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Moody Blues, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Three Dog Night, Elton John, and for some strange reason Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Diamond. In later years, my older sister would add in her own mix of Alice Cooper, Kiss, Queen, and for some strange reason Rex Smith. (Later, my younger brothers would toss in the likes of Motorhead, Rush, Triumph, AC-DC, and The Sex Pistols. I never added much to the mix, nor did my father, who only seemed to like Sha Na Na and Elvis.)

It was good music to be weaned on; a great variety of classic rock (only then it was still contemporary). I learned more from music in those days than school or church. When I couldn’t grasp the story of the passion of Christ in catechism, my mom would throw on “Jesus Christ Superstar” and suddenly it all made sense. When I asked my mom what the Vietnam War was all about, she’d play the album “Hair” and I’d kind of get it. But it wasn’t just the music that was so great, the actual album itself was an amazing visual experience too – from the cover art, to the inserts inside, to the actual disc(s) – there was as just as much to look at as there was to listen to.

Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” album, for example, not only had killer tracks, but also came with an album cover that both looked and opened like an actual school desk, and inside the cover was a lacey pair of women’s panties that doubled as a record sleeve. It was my first real introduction to rebellion and sex, all wrapped up in a nice, neat, 12” x 12” package. What more could 9-year-old boy want?

The Beatles’ aptly named “White Album” was another one of my favorites (although it really should have been called “White Albums” since there were two). The “White Album” featured nothing more than a white cover embossed with the words “The Beatles” in the lower right hand corner, but inside the album jacket came not only a poster of the band and four individual 8 x 10 photos suitable for framing, but two LP records pressed on vinyl as white as virgin snow - I’d never seen anything like it

I spent hours poring over every inch of an album’s cover because it contained so much information – song lyrics, notes from the band, killer photography – I didn’t know it at the time, but the music, combined with artistic album covers, opened up a creative channel in me that contributed to my future occupation. (I’m a professional photographer, in case you were wondering). The same could be said for my younger brother Lance (he of the heavy metal taste) who now makes his living as both a musician and a sound technician.

Most of our albums were played so much we had to buy stereo needles in bulk. Eventually, many of the records wore out or developed scratches so deep they inevitably would skip (something that became so deeply ingrained in my psyche that to this day I’m still surprised to hear one of our “scratched” songs on the radio without the skip) but we cherished them for their music nonetheless.

I was much too young back then to go to concerts, but my parents saw plenty. I can’t say for sure how many concerts they actually attended, but I do remember my mother going on and on about how great Neil Young was live. I also remember her being really pissed off at the crowd behavior when she went with my dad to see Cat Stevens in Cleveland (they were setting fire to their concert programs and then throwing on stage like Molotov cocktails). Stevens, too, apparently was quite peeved, so much so he called the crowd a “bunch of assholes” and then marched off the stage less than 20 minutes into his set.

Bad crowd behavior was a staple of rock and roll crowds (and bands) in the 70’s – maybe it was leftover angst from the Vietnam era, hard to say since I was only a kid. But I do remember going to my very first professional basketball game (Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Washington Bullets) at the Richfield Coliseum in 1976 with my cousin, my uncle and my dad, and when we got there, it looked like a war zone. There were broken beer bottles strewn all over the parking lot, yellow crime scene tape and police blockades were everywhere, and the giant windows of the coliseum were either shattered or boarded up with plywood.

I knew the Cavs were pretty bad, but I had no idea they could bring out so much hatred in their fans that they actually would riot. My dad told me it had nothing to do with bad basketball, Led Zeppelin had been there the night before on their “Song Remains the Same” tour and things apparently got a little out of hand. I asked him what happened and he told me, “Nothing that doesn’t normally happen when Led Zeppelin goes on tour.”

When we got inside, several rows of seats were marked off with the same yellow police tape. They’d been deemed unsafe until the fire-damaged upholstery could be repaired. The place also stunk of beer, vomit, and the haze of some strange smelling smoke which still hung in the air.

“Don’t people come to concerts to hear the music?” I asked my dad.

“No.” My dad replied, “They come so they can get drunk and stoned and act like complete assholes!”

That left a real impression on me and my view of Led Zeppelin. Four years later when Zeppelin’s drummer John Bonham choked to death on his own vomit after a drinking binge, thousands of Zeppelin fans openly mourned, not so much his passing, I think, but more the fact that Zeppelin as a band was probably done. I didn’t mourn so much (not like the day John Lennon died later that year) but I did think back to that day at the Richfield Coliseum and it made me wonder if maybe Zeppelin fans were mourning the fact they no longer had a reason to get drunk and stoned and smash the hell out of beautiful arenas?

Maybe it really was the music they were mourning. Maybe they were starting to mature as an audience and maybe the remaining members of Zeppelin were starting to mature as well. Perhaps the tragedy in Cincinnati the year before, where 11 fans were trampled to death trying to get into a Who concert, had sobered up much of the rock and roll world. After all, by the end of 1980, the list of dead rock legends was a long one: Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Bon Scott, and John Lennon, to name but a few. Maybe baby boomers decided it was finally time to grow up?

After Bonham's death, the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin would go their separate ways. Once in a while they would reunite for some global cause like Live Aid, but the music was never quite the same, nor was the audience. The pot smoking may have remained, but only as a token act from a bygone era. Gone were the Molotov cocktails, no more seats were set on fire and no more beer bottles were hurtled through arena windows.

Robert Plant, Zeppelin’s lead singer, would change as well. No longer attached to the band and its “heavy-metal-hotel-destroying” stigma, Plant’s solo career became an interesting one. The rock and roll certainly remained, but Plant reinvented himself over the years, dabbling in things like folk, and, God forbid, even country.

Plant still tours to this day, I know because I saw him in concert the other night. He's 62 now, and at times it was hard to believe I was watching the same guy who once strutted up and down 70’s concert stages, bare-chested and golden locks a flowing like some Greek God dressed in skin-tight bellbottoms, belting out primal screams from somewhere deep behind his heavy blonde mane.

But it was.

Plant, still spry and sounding quite good at age 62. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

His pants weren’t quite as skintight, but he still showed a little bare chest through his open shirt, and his heavy blonde mane was as long and curly as ever (not even a touch of gray, although these days it frames a much older looking face). Plant also still moved about on stage much the same as he did as a young man – a graceful sort of glide that is uniquely his.

His voice, however, wasn't quite the same, not worse, mind you, but nothing like the howling-wolf style that once was his trademark. I guess his vocal chords could sustain only so much abuse, but truth is, Plant always could sing, and he still can. In many ways, nothing about Plant, except the band around him, has changed all that much.

The audience, on the other hand, was an entirely different story.

I wasn’t ready for, nor expecting a group quite so mellow. These were, I assumed, many of the same assholic drunks who were tossing beer bottles through plate glass windows and screwing each other in arena parking lots 35-years ago. Now here they were, older and gentler, strolling gingerly into a concert hall dressed to the nines drinking not beer or hard liquor, but bottled water. Still others, like the ones where I was stationed near the back of the hall, were being pushed to their seats in wheelchairs - some hooked up to oxygen!

This was hard for me to fathom, although it did dawn on me that my own mother, the same woman who introduced me to Led Zeppelin so many years ago and was the same age as Robert Plant, was now dead. And my father, he of the “they’re all a bunch of drunken assholes” days in the parking lot of the Richfield Coliseum, is rapidly approaching 70 and can barely walk.

"What happened to rock and roll and its once young and rebellious crowd?" I wondered to myself. "How could they all have gotten so old, except, apparently, for Plant?"

It seems like only yesterday I was peeling the cellophane wrapper off another new album to add to my mother’s collection on our living room floor. Now those albums are long gone, replaced by cassettes, and then CD’s and now MP3’s. Our stereo is long gone too, a victim of boom boxes and CD players (which now are on the endangered list themselves thanks to iPods and other modern-day methods of shutting ourselves off from the world).

Things change, I get that. We all get older (if we’re lucky) and as we age, we try our best to hang on to the things that helped define us in our youth. It's the basis of every good, full-blown middle-age crisis. But I must openly admit, seeing a 62-year-old rock legend strutting his stuff in front of a crowd of well-dressed-bottled-water-sipping-semi-geriatrics left me feeling a little bit ... well, as Robert Plant would put it -- dazed and confused!

(For the record, my favorite Led Zeppelin album has always been Led Zeppelin I, but my favorite Zeppelin tune is "When the Levee Breaks" ... killer harmonica!)

What's up Doc? - A look back at the family doctor

2011-01-20T19:51:00.000-08:00

A flu shot administered where it ought to be - or so I'm told. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

I went to the doctor for my annual physical today, which is no big deal really, as long as you don’t mind being poked and prodded for 10 minutes or so in places normally hidden from view.

I guess I can understand how a lot of guys feel extremely uncomfortable at the prospect of having some doctor they barely know stick his finger up their bum to check their prostate, or, if he’s feeling really ambitious, their tonsils. But my doctor is a little guy with small fingers, so it never bothers me much.

Today’s physical was no different. The nurse came in to have me fill out a form, stand on a scale, check my blood pressure, and then tell me to wait for the doctor. When the doctor came in the room it was more of the same. He looked in my ears, looked down my throat, and looked up my nose, all the while uttering things like “uh, huh” and “very well.”

Then he had me take off my shirt so he could peruse my torso for any odd-looking moles (as if all moles aren’t odd-looking). He asked a few questions here and there, and then the listened to my heart and lungs. Finally, he had me lie down on the examination table so he could play the bongo drums on my major organs for a few minutes with his fingertips.

Apparently satisfied with the tonal quality of my kidney, liver, and intestines, he then uttered the one phrase that keeps most men from seeing their doctor:

“Drop your drawers and bend over." He said. "I want to make sure your prostate isn’t the size of a grapefruit.”

He smacked a latex glove into place, and then reached for the tube of lubricant.

“Sorry about this.” He said.

“Don’t sweat it, Doc - your finger is a heck of a lot smaller than what usually comes out of there.” I assured him.

Two seconds later he was done. I mean he was done, done, but since my pants were already pulled down, I asked him if he wanted to check my front side too, you know the “turn-your-head-and-cough” thing.

He told me it wasn’t necessary unless I thought I might have a hernia. I hadn’t really given it much thought up till then, so I probed around my groin and midsection for a while to see if anything hurt or seemed to be bulging out of place. Everything appeared to be pain free and relatively smooth, so I figured I was good to go until I remembered I had yet to get a flu this year. To be honest, I didn’t really know if I needed one, or if it even made sense at this point in the winter, but I thought I’d ask anyway.

“Hey Doc, do you think I should get a flu shot?” I asked, as I pulled up my pants. “Or does it even matter now?”

“Absolutely, it matters.” He said. “I’ll send the nurse back in.”

Shots, like prostate exams, are no big deal to me. Some people get nervous going to the doctor, or faint at the sight of a needle, but it doesn’t bother me one bit. I think it might have something to do with the doctor I had when I was a kid growing up in Berlin Heights, Ohio. His name was Dr. Richard Blackann, and in a town of 800 people, he was pretty much revered as a God.

Dr. Blackann was a man of large stature, both physically - standing nearly six and a half feet tall - as well as in the community where everyone looked up to him for his wisdom. He was a true throwback to a bygone era. He carried around one of those black doctor’s bags like you see in the movies, and he even made house calls (which seemed silly since his office was in the middle of town less than two miles from pretty much everyone who lived there).

I’ll never forget his office. It was in an old house on South Street right across from the funeral home (that seemed spooky to me as a kid, sort of like one-stop shopping in case Doc made some horrible mistake). His waiting room was actually an old living room; it had about five chairs, usually parked in a semi-circle on the blue carpet around a central table filled with magazines of every sort.

It also had a smell that was purely unique - like nothing and everything all at the same time; the perfect mixture of antiseptic, old house, and candy. And it was always warm, even in the dead of winter, thanks to the giant radiators that lined the walls of the waiting room.

Every now and then, the door to his office would swing open and you could sneak a peak inside at some other kid, or grown up, getting stitches in their head or having a tongue depressor rammed down their throat, but usually you just had to sit there and nervously wait for his assistant Gladys to call your name.

It was rare to hear anyone moaning or crying in the other room while you were waiting, not even kids. I think that was partly because Doc was so gentle, but mostly because every kid knew they’d get a sucker or a piece of candy if they could somehow make it through the visit tear free – the same went for adults.

I’ll never forget the inside of his office either. Rows and rows of clear glass jars, some filled with cotton swabs, others with tongue depressors and still others with actual aspirins, and, of course, there was always at least one filled with syringes. He had a mortar and pestle on the shelf he used to crush up pills, and a board with a trough at the bottom that made it easy for him to count out prescriptions before dumping them into a pill bottle.

In the middle of Dr. Blackann’s office, set at an angle, was his examination table. It was old and tall, with a dark green leather top you never got to touch because of it was always covered with the crinkly white paper kept in a giant roll at the head of the table that Doc would pull down and rip off in a perfect straight line at the foot of the table when it was time to climb aboard.

In the corner of his office was a bathroom, a very old bathroom. Everything about it seemed ancient, but extremely clean. From the shiny black door handle, to the ivory white light fixtures to the teardrop handles on the faucets; there wasn’t a speck of dirt to be found. I spent many hours in that bathroom over the years nervously emptying my bladder waiting for Doc to enter the room.

Dr. Blackann was a doctor when doctors did everything. He delivered babies, stitched up open wounds (between me and my brothers, he put more stitches in us than a baseball) gave routine checkups, and was the local high school’s team doctor and trainer. About the only thing he didn’t do was give shots – he left that up to Gladys.

Gladys was a master with a syringe, and nice too. Her hands were always warm and her smile was always bright. She even suggested it might be best to administer shots into the top of my butt cheeks rather than my spindly arms since I was a such a skinny little turd my entire childhood

“Best drop your drawers Lonnie, you ain’t got enough meat on them arms for me to go stickin’ em full of needles.” She’d always say, and I’d oblige.

This went on right up though high school. Whenever I needed a shot, Gladys would come in the room and I’d pull my pants down and take one in the cheek. Neither one of us thought much about it, it was just the way we’d always done it.

Then came the day I had to get a series of shots before I headed off to college. For some reason, I had to go to the Erie County Board of Health, rather than Dr. Blackann’s office to get the shots, and for the first time in nearly 20-years, I was going to be pricked by someone other than Gladys.

I didn’t really care, but when the nurse administering the shots came into the room to find me bare-assed and bent over the examination table, she was a little put off.

“Son, what on Earth are you doing?” She asked upon being greeted by my bare buttocks.

“Waiting for my shots.” I said matter-of-factly. “Could you maybe split them up? You know, give me the measles and mumps on one side, and the tetanus on the other?”

“I’ll do no such thing.” She said. “You pull your pants up young man.”

“But how are you going to give me my shots if I pull up my pants?” I asked somewhat naively.

“In your shoulder!” She said angrily.

“My shoulder? Why would you give me a shot there?" I responded. “Look at them, they’re all skinny.”

“Because that’s where you’re supposed to get a shot!” She snorted.

“Hmm, and here all these years I been getting them in my butt cheeks … are you sure you just don’t want to do it there? … I mean I’m all ready to go.”

“PULL UP YOUR PANTS!” She demanded.

Ten minutes and two extremely sore arms later, I was wishing she had listened to me.

Eventually the soreness wore off and I went to college. I even managed to graduate. I saw plenty of other doctors when I was away at school, but whenever I was home on break and had any physical problem at all, Dr. Blackann was always more than happy to see me - even after he retired. Other younger doctors took over Doc’s practice after that, but none of them carried a black doctor’s bag or made house calls, and none of them saw patients in Doc’s old office on South Street across from the funeral home anymore. In 2004 Doc died from lung cancer, no surprise, I suppose, considering the fact it seemed like he was always smoking (a strange habit for a doctor, but back then everybody smoked).

I hadn’t thought about Doc in a long time, but today, for some reason, I did. I was never old enough when I lived in Berlin Heights to get a prostate exam from Doc (he probably would have just had Gladys do it anyway, since she was so familiar with my backside) and he never gave me a shot ... not once!

Today I couldn't help but smile when the nurse gave me my flu vaccination. I even chuckled a little as I thought back to Doc and Gladys, and, of course, the first time I ever got a shot somewhere other than my rear quarters, many moons ago!