Month: October 2008

I’m sitting outside Kyle’s high school waiting for him to get out a Halloween movie. His mom is home worried. Tonight is Kyle’s first night out without Mom or Dad. Ever. The sound of the Bruins game is my company for the wait. They’re in Calgary. During a break, I heard Sloan. They play Sloan during breaks of Calgary Flames games. That’s cool…

Mmmm….

OK, it’s 9:33… Where’s my boy?

Less than two weeks before the biggest election of my lifetime, I got a tour of Sarah Palin’s “Real America.” In rural, Central Florida the “McCain-Palin” signs outnumber “Obama-Biden” by about 50-1 and add color to a flat, dead landscape of mildewed trailer parks, crumbling buildings and rusted old Chevy lawn ornaments in many front yards.

The dirty, 1950’s storefronts advertise cheap smokes and even cheaper beer. The corporate mass-produced products of slow death numb whatever senses these “real” Americans have left. That and God. The only buildings that stand out here are the churches, and they are largely of the evangelical variety, dominating Catholic houses of worship in numbers similar to what the Republicans enjoy. “What opportunity do people have when they’re born here?” I rhetorically asked my dad. “Not much,” he replied. I assume a military “career” at one end of a gun barrel must look pretty good to young men or women staring down a barrel of emptiness in places like Lake County, FL. These are the kids sent to fight neocon wars and flag-draped “thank you’s” are marketed as “heroic” instead of what they are: exploited.

After touring the still heart of blood red Florida, it’s no mystery why they vote Republican. They’re still living in the glorious post-WWII 1950’s, a time when their cheap labor was the only available and the asbestos factory was at full capacity. Now the factories exploit Chinese workers and asbestos kills those first shift workers who now lack health benefits. Since then, local schools and dominating churches continue to mold young minds to believe in an infallible America and the vital national importance of banning gay marriage. The ignorance bred red also makes these “real” Americans fearful of what’s different, including a middle name of “Hussein.” It’s no wonder Republicans shred education budgets.

Sadly, most of the people living in the rural towns of counties like Lake and Volusia in Florida long for a time that’s never coming back, and some despicable Republican strategists steal their votes by telling them it will.

I’m not crazy about heights, in fact terrified would nail it, yet staring down on a life fifty years in the making is serene. Sure, it’s strewn with a few big rocks and some regrets, but there’s beauty down there too. Today marks my fiftieth anniversary of October twentieth, and Saturday we celebrated Madison’s first. She’s actually was the BIG ONE yesterday, but really, she didn’t know. In fact, I selfishly believe her 10 minutes on the porch wrapped in a blanket with her Papi, were her best of the day. Inside was the din of 25 people talking at once. Outside was fresh air, peaking colors and quiet love. Maddy cried when I moved toward the door, but there were presents to open and chocolate cake to smear in her silky blonde hair.

Madison’s mom is semi-smooth diamond formed over nearly 20 of my years. I am so proud of the mother she is. About this time last year priorities proposed were a new baby and continuing education. Megan is a natural with Maddy and she’s enjoying and excelling in school. For extra credit she’s a wonderful, pain in the ass sister to Kyle and a loving “Mom” to her niece MacKenzie. I’m pretty demanding on my girl, but she’s one jewel I want to see sparkle at full potential. Since she’s got the whole, smart, funny and beautiful thing going on, my Megan should have a shining life.

Speaking of shine, no one I know radiates love like Mr. Kyle Daley. I know a “song in his heart” is trite cliché, but anyone who knows Kyle realizes “his heart will go on” because of the love and songs in it. To see Kyle doting on his 87 year old grandmother or baby Maddy is to see the actions of a young man who makes the world a better place. Kyle’s also a pretty funny guy with a sense for comedy and timing. He also does some great impressions of his favorite movie characters. Actor, singer, comic… Kyle does it all.

Today I’ll begin the end of the work that has consumed much of my favorite month. It’s been a rewarding effort, and I know there are people who truly appreciate it. In times like these, coaxing a smile or laugh from a concerned face is more satisfying than ever. I guess that’s the gift of my life. Like Megan, I think I have my priorities in order, but like Kyle, I live a life with a soundtrack and always look for the one liner that might shine a little light. Yep. I’m just “Mr. Glass Half-Full.”

The impressions of Fall blaze a great canvas staring down from a thousand feet, but only for a few last breezes before the crisp descent of the end. As the chlorophyll drains, the drying diffuses into firey red, yellow and orange like an explosion of Fruit Loops over an evergreen pitch.

It happens every weekday in corporate America with déj? vu-like time precision. As focus shifts silently from intellectual (probably too strong a word) to biological, the office is exited, GPS* kicks in, and a biological mission commences. It’s an efficient, repeatable process, a um, flowchart if you will… Head down. Determined. Like a subway car on rails. No turns allowed.

This unconscious route execution allows the conscious mind to continue jumbling things like a rat bouncing on a circular treadmill after succumbing to exhaustion.

Occasionally, an interruption delays the void, often just as the “swing open bathroom door” task is about to be executed. This process deviation is startling and causes the screeching brakes of the subway car to engage, cratering cranial operations to near shutdown. It is at this point when visual systems connect and sort of a whispered, barely audible, “scuse me…” trails off to silence and visual connection trickles to a stop. The Bathroom Brush By is a strange ritual and impacts almost every traveling unit the same way. The phenomena is a combination of the system drain and a, “I know what you were just doing and you know what I’m about to do and that’s really more than either of us can handle right now” kinda thing.

Do you experience the Bathroom Brush By?

* Global Peeing System