And the sign said long haired freaky people need not apply...

Protest - n. proh-test

1. an expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent, often in opposition to something a person is powerless to prevent or avoid.

 

Someone is always protesting something... and the one thing that all protests have in common are signs. Rectangular pieces of cardboard or plastic attached to a stick of some kind and held to graphically enhance the point of the protest. I personally have never held a protest sign, but if I did participate in a protest, I think my sign might read like one of these! 

 

I have to give my cousin Paul credit for these... thanks cuz!

Who, What, Why, Where and How?

I've always had a curious nature. I have questions... special questions... not like "what's for dinner?" or "who took the last cookie that I was saving for later?" I mean BIG SPECIAL questions... questions to which no one has an answer. They're not questions that require long detailed answers. They're not questions that require an answer from someone who is highly trained in any special area. They're not hard questions... they're just special questions that I know I'll never get the answers to... never during my brief stay on this earth at least. I call them my God questions.

You see, I have a mental picture of the sequence of events that will happen after I die. I'm sure it's nothing like anyone else on earth's idea of dying and going to heaven, but  I think this is the way it'll happen to me. I'll stroll through the pearly gates as most envision the start of their heavenly adventure, and once on the other side, I'll be walking along a white sandy beach with crystal clear azure water. It won't be too hot... there'll be a slight breeze... sort of like the beach I love on St. John in the Virgin Islands. Enter God... holding an ice cold Boddington's beer just for me. Now, I don't drink a lot of beer, but I thoroughly enjoy a "good" beer from time to time, with Boddington's being my favorite. I think when Debbie does the pearly gate walk, she'll probably walk the same beach as I, but God will probably have a big ice cold glass of diet Pepsi. She'll have no worry over the aspartame in it and can drink as much as she wants unlike she should here on earth because she's going to grow a third arm out of her head with the crazy amount of diet Pepsi with aspartame in it she drinks now and is going to die early and leave me a widower with two kids to raise... STOP, I seem to have gotten sidetracked here. Sorry for that... let's rewind and not read that totally run-on ranting last sentence. Love you baby!

Anyway, it's at this point that I'll sit on a nice comfortable rock (Hey, it's heaven, rocks are going to be very comfortable) with the Almighty and finally have that question and answer session while we sip our beers. Yes, our beers, God will definitely be having an ice cold Boddington's with me. Mind you, I'll  have lots and lots of these God questions, but these will probably be the 10 most important on my list:

1. How did I do?
2. How's my dad?
3. Is there anyone not here that I expected would be?
4. How big is the universe... I know it's big, but I mean, like... how big?
5. Is there life on other planets? Are any of them like the Klingons?
6. Who killed John F. Kennedy? Why?
7. Did OJ kill his ex-wife and that other guy? How come the glove didn't fit?

8. Why do hot dog buns come in packages of 8 but hot dogs come in packages of 10?
9. Why did I only get a B in Math 305? 
10. Got any pretzels to go with this beer? 

When there's nothing you can do

I watched Oprah today. I've watched Oprah before, have been entertained before... but was really impressed by her show today... more than any other show of hers I've seen. Her audience was made up of 200 men... just men, with one thing in common... one very big thing in common. They were all sexually abused as children. It was emotional to watch men of all different ages, that I assume were from all over the United States, that were all brave enough to sit in her audience on national TV. They were all men we meet and see every day... our fathers, our brothers, your husbands, our teachers, our bosses... and I'm sure it was incredibly tough for every one of them to sit in that audience!

When I look back at my childhood, I realize how incredibly blessed I am to have grown up with two wonderful parents who truly loved me unselfishly, protected me and simply wanted what was best for me. They both grew up during the great depression... my dad in a one parent home after his dad died when he was 9 months old, and my mom growing up in a less than perfect family with an alcoholic father. But they made a choice... a choice to raise my sister and me the right way. I learned from them and try to raise my children the same way.

I find it so hard to understand how people who are supposed to be protecting children... in many cases their OWN children... can betray them. It's sad... it's disheartening... the sad feeling I had during the show almost got the best of me... I felt myself feeling becoming despondent about life because this show was reminding me of all the wrong in the world. After this feeling started to pass, I realized that I'm glad to have felt this... glad to NOT feel complacency... glad to not just pass this off as "a part of life". I don't know what I can do to help. I guess all I can do is protect my children and show them what a dad is supposed to be. I'll do my best!

Bravo Oprah!

Crack a Rat

Okay, let's go back to a time when we were younger. Nope, not our twenties when we were starting out as adults... and not to our late teens when we were having fun with our best friends forever in high school, and not when we were in middle school and began to discover the thrill of seeing that person that made our heart flutter. Let's go back to a time when our carefree spirit made us laugh and laugh... at what? Well, at a fart. There I said fart... a word that my mother hated and taught us not so say. I'm not sure why she hates that word, but she still does. I guess it rubbed off on me as I really don't like that word either. I choose to say "toot" in our home and try to get the kids to say that too, so I'll refer to the bodily process of passing gas as that. Remember when you were a kid and the most innocent of toots would set a whole group of friends laughing and carrying on? It would happen every time and with no less laughter than the 25th time before that. Fart, toot, barking spider, gas-passing... all words to describe the same thing... in fact one website I found had 261 synonyms for the word.

We were fascinated by toots and we'd invent ways to let them go in fairly creative ways. Everyone has said "pull my finger"... c'mon, you know you have! I've done that as recently as a few months ago with success and a few times since with not so successful results. I'll never forget the first time I did that to my son, Seldon, when he was about six and he just laughed and laughed... the look on his face was priceless and we had quite a dad-son bonding moment over it. I'm pretty sure there is no better way for a man to bond with his son that by sharing a tooting moment. Even my 14 year old daughter, Savanna, still laughs at toots. You'd think she'd be completely grossed out by it, but just last night, I was passing by her room at the end of the day... she was getting ready to settle down... I said good night, turned my bottom side towards her and... well, I tooted at her. Instead of yelling at me to "GO AWAY" or "THAT'S SO GROSS", she started to laugh and laugh. I guess I'm still her hero... a tooting hero, but a hero nonetheless!

Balsa Wood and Tissue Paper

Airplanes... I love them. I love to fly in them. I like watching them take off - I like watching them land. I always try to take a window seat when I fly so that I can watch outside as the mechanical bird's engines rev to what seems like their breaking point to allow the bird to begin it's ascent. I'm always like a seven year old on his first flight... nose pressed against the cold glass watching the cars become ants. I'm so very very afraid of heights, but have never felt that awful queasy feeling when in an airplane. Airline food? THAT makes me queasy.

I used to be a UPS driver in New Jersey and a job I had at one point was to travel to the airport (Newark Liberty International Airport) each day with mis-routed packages. I'd swap them with drivers from other "hubs" who also had mis-routed packages for my "hub." I would drive there early in the morning, go to the UPS facility there and drive my truck right up to the airplanes. I was always fascinated with them... by their size... by their shape... by the technology used to maneuver them... by the idea that that massive piece of steel and aluminum and plastic and fiberglass was capable of going into the sky and travel to other places faster and more efficiently than could be done on the ground.

My dad loved airplanes and I'm sure that's where my fascination and love of them comes from. He served in the US Army during World War II and was an airplane mechanic. He used to fly in the nose of the B-17 while they test flew them after being serviced. I could always see the sparkle in his eyes when he told me the stories... I knew he loved it. He also loved model airplanes; he started building radio-control airplanes when he was about 16 years old and continued to build them his whole life. He was fascinated by the physics of how airplanes flew and I guess that's why he loved to build and fly them. He always said that if his eyes had been better, he'd have liked to have been a pilot. I wish he could have been. I always remember his airplanes hanging on the ceiling in the basement and his workshop... some were finished, others in various states of completion and every once in a while the remains of a wreck would be there after a not so fortunate afternoon of flying. Some had names: there was "Schoolboy" and Schoolgirl"... there was "Lil Rascal"... there was the Cub and a biplane, and then there were some that had no names. They were always around.

His airplanes are all gone now, but the memories of them live strong in my mind. I miss my dad, but I think of him whenever I see a model airplane... especially when I look at Lil Rascal hanging on the ceiling of MY workshop!

The future is now!

I love technology and I love music, so I was very intrigued by something I saw on The Early show this morning. Their name is Atomic Tom and they make music... really good music with their iPhones. Give this a listen... the future, at least my future, is happening now and I couldn't be more excited.

Brush Strokes

I painted today. I wish I could say that I created a wonderful piece on canvas or paper, but I didn't. I didn't use watercolors or acrylics... I didn't use tempera or oils... I didn't even use pastels. I used latex and I painted on walls. Basement walls to be exact. Now I consider myself and artist of sorts... more of a frustrated artist, but I think I have the gene in my body that controls the way our brains observe the world and sees it as a canvas. Good design excites me... it makes sense... it feels good and I love art and design. Now rolling paint on basement walls with a polyester roll on a handle, not so much.

I am enjoying the fact that we're finishing the basement and it's moving along nicely at the moment. I enjoy working around the house... doing projects and puttering. I enjoy looking at the finished product and knowing that I did it myself. I just don't enjoy painting very much. Maybe it's the perfectionist in me that causes this... maybe it's the neat freak in me that causes this... maybe it's the smell that causes me to feel this way... no, it just that painting is simply boring. Anyway, I have a few more days of painting before this stage of the project is finished and as boring as it is, I'll trudge on and get it done.
I think next time I'll pretend that my basement is the Sistine Chapel and I'm Michelangelo. I better go to Home Depot tomorrow and pick up a few sheets of gold leaf!