Five Months Later

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

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)

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

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

Come on baby light my fire

Try to set the night on fire

Try to set the night on 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

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!

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?