Morale Boost and V-Day

This past weekend was just what I needed. Well, except for the two drives through Connecticut, but all good things must be paid for. Probably why I have flakes of blue and red nail polish on my fingers right now. More on that later. After the Tuesday debacle, I was in serious need of a morale boost and there is a bona fide, “sure thing” in that department, consisting of time spent with the family. Today is also the FBR’s birthday, so that had to be celebrated, of course. She decided this year she wanted her birthday party at a roller-skating rink, one of her latest fascinations. To accomplish this welcome task, we journeyed down to New Jersey on Friday, successfully shooting the gap between morning and evening rush hours. We arrived to find my daughter full into birthday party prep which the parents of young children will understand.

FBR With her Birthday Face On

We had a very fun afternoon as I was volunteered, by the FBR, to be her primary assistant on the backyard playground set. I was a little tired from the Connecticut passage, but I realized I don’t have many more years of fielding these requests from the granddaughters (No, not because I’m dying but they’re growing up) (So fast!). It was a summer-like day, so we ended up on the back deck hanging out as the sun set before launching into First Friday celebrations. Apparently, I’ve been talking too much about my wine drinking during the European vacation and Wingman called me on that. To reward his diligence in curbing my boasting, I endeavored to remind him each time I saw him over the weekend, about how much wine I’d had in Europe. It’s what I do. Saturday saw the arrival of the New Hampshire bunch as my son’s family arrived. They’d spent Friday night at our empty house to break up the trip. I was once again on duty at the backyard playground set when their arrival was announced. I knew at that point that cousins trump grandparents, in no uncertain terms, and that I was out of a job for the foreseeable future.

Frist Friday Deck Time

Backyard Assistant Duties

Cousins have Arrived!!!

I’m so glad these three have bonded the way that they have. We set out together for the trek to the roller-skating rink. The rink brought back a lot of memories of my own youth when the YMCA used to sponsor trips for us to Brattleboro and the nearest roller-skating rink. Nothing much has changed, other than rollerblades, in the last 60 years, from what I could tell. The FBR was in serious nirvana as her friends arrived to celebrate her birthday. She’s gotten pretty good on roller blades herself. It was interesting to see kids who could barely stand on their skates when they arrived, cruising around the rink after a couple hours.

Biggest Birthday Present!

Skater Girl

On the Floor Trailed by ABFA and Wingman

Loving It

Abuela and Dad Offering BR3 Advice

The party called for the unveiling the latest of another of my Favorite Panamanian’s superb granddaughter birthday cakes, roller skating themed this time out. She spends three days creating each of these cakes and bakes so much love into each. While I had brought Bonecrusher with us, we felt it would probably be frowned upon by the rink management to enter with a three-foot broadsword. The FBR understood and said we could cleave the remnants of the cake later at home. She also wanted my daughter to cut the cake with her as I had forgotten to bring Bonecrusher with me for her birthday. Kid has a heart.

FBR's Birthday Gang

ABFA and the Cousins

The Cake

Its Creator

The Birthday Girl

The rink was filled with at least three other birthday parties and such additional people as the roller-skating genre appeals to. The ABFA, being the true athlete, spent almost the entire time out on the skating floor with sore feet to prove it. Wingman was similarly affected, but both devoted a large amount of their time shepherding the kids around the endless loop. My wife and I have only two good knees between us, so the roller skating was not on our agenda. My son and I were keeping a beaded eye on the clock as it marched so slowly towards the party end time. While it was supremely rewarding to see the FBR glorified and immersed in her birthday celebration, it was time to leave well before the appointed hour.

Candles Lit

And Unlit

Mother and Daughter

Very Happy Birthday Party

A representative quorum of the FBR’s friends live in the neighborhood and returned home with us for the ceremonial gifts opening. I always enjoy watching the granddaughters open gifts because it brings back memories of the joy associated with these moments from my own youth. Part of the joy of grandkids is the vicariously living out archived memories they bring to the fore. The FBR, I think, was happier to be surrounded by family and friends than the gifts themselves, but it was a tight contest. We moved to the backyard for the piñata bashing. Earlier in the day I accompanied my daughter and the FBR to the local party store where I bought the piñata. The FBR has inherited her abuela’s shopping acumen and chose the largest piñata available. I thought the thing was pretty sturdy and envisioned another one of those death by a thousand blows piñata situations. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when the FBR dealt a deathblow to the thing with the first swing. A piece broke off and the candy flowed out to into a sea of diving nine-year-olds and one Panamanian lady.

Back Home for Gifts

The FBR Holding Court

The Crew With the Short-lived Pinata

After the exhausted but sugar infused granddaughters were sent to bed, we settled in for another one of those evenings I cherish. The “kids”, Wingmom, and we sat around enjoying each other’s company in a way only a familial bond creates. Someone mentioned a new documentary available on Netflix surrounding the 2004 Red Sox and we spent the rest of the evening luxuriating in that seminal moment in New England sports lore, appropriately titled, “The Comeback”. Watching it in the heart of the Evil Empire led to a truly fun evening.

Sunday was recovery day for everyone except the kids who were surreptitiously delving into their candy bags whenever the parents weren’t paying close enough attention. After church we trooped over to the Player Agency, Wingman’s new restaurant where he served as a fabulous host, even tuning in the Red Zone for me, knowing how much my two football-less weeks in Europe had cost me (despite all the wine). My Favorite Panamanian created a fantastic roast beef dinner for all before we had to face the return journey home. The BRS came down with some kind of stomach bug (roller rink food?) which put her out of action for most of the day, culminating with a technicolor yawn onto the couch in the early evening. While dinner was being created the FBR and BR3 decided I needed a makeover which resulted in face sparkles and the aforementioned blue and red nail polish. They were a little upset with me when I removed it when I went to buy gas for the return trip. They solved that dilemma by re-applying it. Dinner was followed by the drawing and quartering of the cake remnants by the FBR’s and my daughter’s expert wielding of Bonecrusher.

Player Agency Time

My Makeover Artists

BR3 Helping her Auntie

Bonecrusher Time!

We set out for home in the early evening, driving through the first appreciable rain we’ve had in a very long time. The only good thing about leaving New Jersey was my son’s family trailing behind us and spending the night again at our house, this time with us in residence. I was trying to figure out why I was getting some weird looks at a rest stop until my eyes smarting a little bit reminded me that I still had the granddaughter applied makeup on. We were all safely home before midnight and this morning BR3 provided critical assistance to my Monday morning rubbish, flag raising, and bird feeding rituals. She only asked, in the way of payment, for a game of hide and seek. A small price, indeed. I can also finally post pictures from the recent Halloween while we were in Italy (drinking wine, Wingman!). They’re all home now but morale has been irrevocably restored and while the house is very quiet, I have it on good authority I have a birthday pub crawl waiting for me this weekend. Color me more than excited.

 

FBR Halloween Pics

With Her mom

BRS and BR3 HAlloween

Arrested!

FBR School Photo

Veterans’ Day

Veterans Day always causes me to reflect on how I ended up wearing a uniform for much of my adult life. I blame my uncles. I grew up idolizing my father’s brothers and sisters, all of whom served in World War 2 along with my father and his brother Pete who died on Guadalcanal. My family has a long history of military service; my great grandfather’s brother, Warren, was killed crossing the Wheatfield at Gettysburg. I was a typical kid growing up in the 1960s drawn in a lot of directions by the cultural forces trying to pull the country apart (kind of like nowadays). I  wandered into the military after college and found a home. I met leaders who reminded me of the gentle uncles with the steel lightly disguised behind eyes that had seen too much. I also found a love of America these aunts and uncles had imbued me with.

I’ve written about this before and decided to repost a couple of those thoughts because they’re appropriate today when we should all be remembering the sacrifices made and thanking those who donned the uniform for the belief in this greatest of all countries. I was brought up, without ever realizing it, to have a deep abiding love of this country and serving in the military only refined those feelings. To serve in the military you must believe in what you’re fighting for. I think, that, more than any other factor can determine an Army’s success on the battlefield. I know that a lot of civilians don’t “get it” and at times even ridicule those who profess a love of country. To be honest, certain fanatical factions of the far right have attempted to hijack patriotism as their sole property while also serving as the judge of who is “patriotic”. This could not be farther from the truth.

Patriotism means standing up for the values your country is based on, not on the convenient truth of the latest politician. True patriotism is found in hating a hateful message but loving the freedom to send it. If nothing else America stands for freedom, an escape from the notion that your station of birth determines your station in life. This is such a precious commodity. I believe in the bedrock decency of America and hold in utter contempt politicians and intellectuals who attempt to denigrate who we are and kow tow to their foreign counterparts to curry favor. They don’t fully appreciate or understand what America means to us. We as a nation comprise the most startlingly successful expression of the basic human need for individual freedom that the world has ever seen. Since we are humans, we are certainly not perfect but we, as a nation, dare to believe we can be better than we’ve been. That is the marrow of this country and the profound, immense strength that fanatics will never understand or successfully confront. Certainly worth fighting for.

I post this every Veterans Day because it says what being a veteran is much more eloquently than I ever could:

What is a Vet?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service:  a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them:  a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg – or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.  Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can’t tell a vet just by looking. What is a vet? He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.  He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel. She, or he, is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.  He is the POW who went away one person and came back another – or didn’t come back at all.  He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs. He is the parade riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.  He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by. He is the three anonymous heroes in the Tomb of the Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep. He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket, palsied now and agonizingly slow, who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and wishes all day long that his wife was still alive to hold him when the nightmares come. He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being, a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs. He is a Soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known. So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded. Two little words that mean a lot, “THANK YOU”.  Remember November 11th is Veterans Day. “It is the Soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the Soldier, not the poet who has given us freedom of speech. It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the Soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.” – Father Denis O'Brien, USMC

Those are powerful words and I know it’s hokey but they still bring tears to my eyes because of their intrinsic truth. My proudest moment in uniform was not at a change of command or a medal ceremony. It was while I was at Washington’s Union Station, in uniform, waiting to pick up my daughter. A businessman noticed me walked over and said, “I just wanted to thank you for serving your country.” As stated above, that meant so much to me, more than any medal or accolade.  So if you have a chance today, say thank you to a veteran.  He or she has earned it.

Three movies fell in the A-Z watch, all keepers: Men in Black 3, fun look at 2 versions of Jones; Men in Black International, updating the classic with a cool reunion of Thor and Valkyrie; and Miami Vice, great atmosphere with a certifiable lack of the cool from the TV series.

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RECURRING CHARACTERS:                                

ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete - my daughter in law; BR3 – Blog Reader #3 – granddaughter #3; BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; CRC - Connecticut Riverboat Captain – another close friend from high school, renowned sailor of the big river; Curbside Girls – close friends of my daughter acquired during her single days in Brooklyn; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of course); FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter; First Friday – celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Keene Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene, NH; Kindergarten Friend – friend since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3^rd Musquetera (musketeer); Namesake Nephew – son of Great Aunt and Soxfather named after me; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member; PanaGals – female relatives /friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we have lived & their spouses; PCR - Pittsburgh College Roommate – high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; PCR+1 - Pittsburgh College Roommate’s wife; Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog; Seis Amigos - two couples from our condo complex and my wife and I; Soxfather – my brother-in-law (whom I miss more than I can ever explain); Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course