To Whom It May Concern #8

I was in Neptune Beach a weekend ago. Stayed with Bill. Francis was visiting so we went up there and each had a room in his upstairs old place on 1st Street. (I need to write about the people I know named Bill. This was Bill from Montana--over a decade older than me--who is originally from Springfield MA and then from Columbus, OH (did a stint in Oregon) and from Medelia/Mankato, MN, then Missoula (then Lafayette IN, then Jax/Neptune Beach FL.) We had a great time . . . But what I wonder is, will I remember to write about it?

This is to all the 1/2 (one half) people who read this blog: It will be quite a while until I write about the tens (2010 and on). So I think, what will I remember from these current days? Will the trip up to Bill's be something I can recall/will recall?

Does it matter?

Crying And Trying in Quebec: Quebec City 1992

After visiting Francis in Montreal, we drove over to Quebec City on our own. Sure, we were impressed. We hadn't been to Europe (well, Fru had been to Sweden in the seventies), so for us this was like being in a European City. The French was nice to hear, but we were glad we could speak all the English we wanted.

We had not picked a place to stay, so that was one of the first things we started looking into. Sure, we were impressed with the big castle-like Hotel Fontenac, but in those days we'd never think of staying there (Fru would, actually, but we were young parents of one baby, maybe fourteen months old, maybe less.) So eventually we found a little French hotel in the old city. Can't recall the name, other than it was a woman's. She showed us a room on the first floor--a nice big room with a big bed and lace curtains and a big old bathtub. It was fine.

At this time, Fru and I were trying for another baby. She was trying to get pregnant. So, we thought it would pretty cool to conceive the second child in Quebec City.

And there was that big old bathtub.

But that night--after walking the city and a bottle of wine in the room--First Daughter cried. I don't mean just cried a normal cry, no, this was a wail. Unstoppable.

We did not know what was wrong, until we changed her diaper and saw a horrendous case of rash. Oww. We did our best to calm her, to treat her, to get her to sleep. Nothing doing. Now we were worried about the other guests, about the woman owner. People had to hear it, this baby wailing. We felt bad.

Finally, we did get her to sleep. We did get that bath. But Second Daughter was not conceived in Quebec City.

Must have been all the noise.

. . . Like It's 1999: Fort Lauderdale 1999

I'm trying to recall that year, nineteen ninety-nine. I think it must have been a good year, what with the end of the century and all that. I recall people were worked up about Y2K, where supposedly all the world's computers would crash--which of course did not happen (though considering 2000 to about 2009, maybe it would have been better if they had).

Let's see. In 1999 we were living in Fort Lauderdale. We had our house and M.R. the cat was still alive. The girls would have been 8 and 6, respectively and Fru and I were just starting our forties. We felt settled by then in South Florida, but it was still new to us just the same. I would have been finishing up my MFA and teaching, Fru still at SunTrust Bank. The girls would be at Virginia Shuman Young Elementary.

Exciting stuff.

Really, things were good, pleasant, calm. Come the next decade, a lot of bad would happen. Bad for the large sense of the world and for the USA, but also quite a bit of personal bad as well, for First Daughter and Fru and my family. Not horrible bad, but bad just the same. But all through 1999, none of that was even a hint in our minds.

I do recall the end of that year. Fru's family came down to visit for Xmas and her brother, his wife and their son stayed into New Years. We had a good time. Fru was very happy because her family had come--her father and his wife and I think maybe even her sister and niece, maybe even her aunt and uncle from Highland, IL had come down that year--and we'd had a big Xmas, the girls were happy to have family about, the weather had been good and so on. AND IT WAS 1999!

We celebrated the end of the year at our house. Fru had bought all this Year 2000 stuff: cups and plates, paper glasses, all this little plastic confetti shaped into flamingoes and 2000 and New Years and palm trees. All tacky and kitschy (which is not Fru). She wanted us to have fun. And we did. When the end of 1999 came we yelled and donned the funny cheap glasses and hats and used the noisemakers, we tossed the thin/hard plastic confetti into the air--all in our house in front of the television set--and then that was that. The 90's were over with.

I really remember that confetti. It went all over, stuck to anything remotely like fabric, fell down into any crevice or crack.

I think it was maybe 2006 when I found the last remaining flamingo/palm tree/2000 piece of confetti in our living room. That last vestige of 1999.

Scooting Across the Floor: Montreal 1992

This was when First Daughter was not even a year old. It was when Fru and I (and First Daughter) drove from Champaign to Montreal to go visit Francis. I'd met Francis in Mexico and had stayed in touch and when we moved from Montana to Champaign, right after our first child was born, he came and visited us there (we met him in Chicago). So, now it was our turn to visit him.

We'd spent the night in Huron, Michigan and I think I called Francis to let him know we were coming. But my message wasn't exact enough, because when we got to Montreal he wasn't expecting us. He lived in a three story apartment--which he owned, where his brother lived in the bottom apartment, Francis on in the second floor and they rented out the third--and it was his brother, Jude, who met us and let us in. Francis had just gotten back from a fishing trip and was not there. So, his place had not been cleaned or readied for our visit (we were staying with him). Not that it was dirty--it's a very nice place in a desirable place in the city--it's mainly that his nice wood floor had not been dusted.

I found some beer in a cooler. The cooler smelled like fish. Jude had called Francis to let him know we'd showed up. Francis--a good host and conscientious human being--was a tad distressed that we had got our trip dates wrong. (I remember now, I'd thought about calling him the night before, but just assumed we'd set the date and time of our arrival, so didn't worry about giving him a heads up on the eve of our arrival.) Anyway--not to worry. All was good and Montreal was--is--of course a fantastic city. For Fru and I it was like going to Europe, the city had that cosmopolitan and foreign feel to it, that vibe, and then there was all the French, the language and voices, the signs, etc.

But--back to the dusty floors--First daughter was not even one year old. She could not walk yet. What she did was scoot. She wore diapers and she would sit cross-legged and to get around, her brand of locomotion, was to scoot on her diapered rear using her legs to pull herself around. . . . So, there we were in Montreal, at Francis' nice place, drinking fishy beer--Fru, Francis and I--and we stood in the kitchen as we watched First Daughter scoot along in her diaper, like a dust mop, cleaning the floors and leaving a trail in the wood as she went.

Of course we laughed.

June Bugs: Sioux Falls 1960

In my mind, this was at home in Sioux Falls in the summer, but really it could have been at my cousin's house outside of Arlington, or in the Black Hills or at a cabin along Lake Ponsett. Not sure, really. But, it was in South Dakota.

Anyway, it was long into the summer, a prairie/plains summer--which means hot and humid, up in the 100's late July/early August summer. Hot. Sunny. Burnt. And it was night time. And we had no air-conditioning. No A/C. I never, never used it until Iowa City in the late 70's, really. Twenty years with no A/C. (Okay, enough about A/C.) Another anyway: It was early evening/night and we had all the windows open, the kitchen door open so that there were only screens. Maybe we were cooking something--Mother cooking something--and we hung out in the kitchen with all the bright sharp lights blaring, the back porch light beaming, we kids--five of us, ten if my cousins were there--were running in and out, playing, no shirts or shoes, kids, and at the screen door, at the kitchen screen window tons of June Bugs flew in.

I'm talking the screens almost covered with big fat hard-shelled insects, buzzing buzzing flitting and sticking to the screen. Man, there were a lot of June Bugs. It was repulsive and fascinating at the same time. It was memorable but normal at the same time. This was how South Dakota was. All these June Bugs covering the screens at night in a hot dog-day South Dakota summer and we were all just little kids, yelling and laughing and doing good dumb kid things, our parents still young but no one knowing that, many years to come but no one knew that, and those insects zizzing and zagging and blanketing the screens of our house.

I still remember that.

A Change In The Weather: Fort Lauderdale 1996

So, we had moved from Illinois to South Florida. We'd lived at the Riverside Hotel from May into July, then we found a house to rent in Victoria Park. Fru went to work at SunTrust Bank, on Las Olas downtown, while I stayed home with the girls--ages five and three--until my classes started at FIU. First Daughter started kindergarten at VSY in the neighborhood, Second Daughter stayed home and my Grad School classes were in the evenings.

And what I recall is that that first late fall and into winter I really enjoyed the weather. I'd drive down to Miami with my windows down--sometimes taking A1A along the beach--and just purely enjoy the warmth, the salty breeze, the fact that I could have my windows down (despite the humidity).

I mean, that's one of the reasons we moved to Florida, wasn't it? The weather? the winter weather? I'd lived in Florida before, had spent much time in the Keys, but, still, I could dig the warmth and the sunshine. We were still connected to the midwest, to it's sense of geography, its flora and fauna, its climate and temperatures. That was our template for viewing things, so our surroundings were still new and fresh and tropically exotic. We--I, as I drove back and forth to FIU--were tangibly conscious of what we had and what we were missing. We knew what the weather was like back "home". And when the cool days of our first winter in Fort Lauderdale came, Fru and I would get out the lawn chairs and just sit out in the yard at night, enjoying the low temps of 60 or even the "cold" 50 degree weather. Ahh.

And it was like that for maybe the first two or three years--this knowledge of what we weren't experiencing during the fall and winter, in October or February or even March (I always disliked March weather up north). But eventually that faded away. Fort Lauderdale, South Florida, became home. Warm sunny winters became our new norm. Fifty degrees really did become cold.

And now, some fourteen years later, rarely can i conjure up that thrill for a warm winter day. I mean, I enjoy it, but no longer do I have that innate comparison to what's going on in Illinois or Iowa or Montana, to what people in New York or even Tennessee, or even the panhandle of Florida are experiencing. It's not even unusual for me to lose track of the rest of the nation's weather. It can be January, but in my mind it's warm everywhere--I think that, sure, someone in Chicago is outside in their shirt and shorts grilling some fresh fish just like me. Why wouldn't they be?

I miss the change in weather. I really do. It's exotic to me to go back to Iowa during the winter and--not just see snow--but to have to wear a coat, to be able to wear long sleeves and socks, to see trees without leaves, to walk on hard soil--that kind of thing.

Yet, the weather patterns are engraved in me down here. I know summer's great heavy rains and humidity, the sorrow of September when you're tired of the wet heat and Hurricane Season, the slight change of things come October, that wondrous first cold snap of winter (fifty degrees!) and then the shift into spring come February. These are subtle seasons, but real seasons and I know them well.

Feat of Strength & The Barroom Booth: Champaign 1988

This was when I spent the summer in Champaign working concrete. I really liked Champaign back then. I had not really lived in the midwest for quite a spell and I enjoyed my time in Illinois. Some of the nicest people I have ever met lived in Champaign back in 1988. I'm sure some of the nicest people in the country still live there now. Despite my own personal misgivings, it's a nice town. A good town. One that I wish more towns were like, sometimes.

Anyway, it was some evening after a day of work and we--the gang, Doug, Kurt Strube (Kurt--pronounced "Strew-bee"--has one of those names that I just have to give the last name), Elroy, maybe Steve or "Foot" (the train-riding hobo guy who liked to be called that)--were at a bar. Pia's. On Springfield, I believe. The west side of town . . . So, we were there drinking copious beers after a hot hot tired day of slinging concrete and pulling concrete and puddling concrete and finishing concrete and talking concrete and thinking concrete. We sat in a booth in the side room where the dart boards and such were and--for whatever reason--some roughhousing ensued.

What was it about? I have no idea. But we began to push each other over something or another. Leroy was across the table and I was pushing him. Kurt was next to me, on the inside of the booth, and he began to press me. He used his arms and his thigh to try and push me out of the booth. But I resisted. He pushed and pushed, but I didn't even nudge in the opposite direction. I held him at bay, then pushed him, forcing him towards the wall. And then, it was over. It was just joking around, but it was also a show. A show of strength I guess (and thus a show--ultimately among males--of dominance).

"You're strong," Kurt said.

Kurt, though not a big guy, was a concrete worker from way back. A good worker. Strong.

"I was bracing against the wall and I still couldn't move you," he said.

To be honest, I knew that. To be honest, yes, it made me feel good.

I did feel good.

What made me think of this is that I weighed myself today. Came in at 220 pounds. Now, to me, my ideal weight is 195. But, I can carry 200 with no problem--I'd settle for 200. But 220! Ouch. I realize this sounds very self-referential or just self-boring, but you know I used to work construction, I worked concrete and landscaping and house painting jobs. I was physical. I haven't done that in so many years. And while I don't think of myself as old, I'm not young. So, this is not good. So, am I ready to settle in with a heavy weight, little exercise and be comfortable each day? I mean, I see this type, all around me, with men my age. I mean: be moderately healthy and moderately lazy and eat a good dang meal. But, am I ready for that?

Or do I want to be the guy who can still push Kurt Strube into the wall from a barroom booth at Pia's in Champaign, Illinois?