Memories of Elmo

Through our lives, from childhood on through, many of us had a number of family pets. Each one of them having their own characteristics, personalities and our memories of them. I had a good number of them in my life time, all with different traits and recollections.

There was our first family pet when I was 3, a Great Dane named Brutus, who jumped through a full length window, shattering it to bits, to chase after a car going by the house. Then there was Shatzig, a Dachshund, who one day while we were out broke into a case of wine my dad had in the utility room, got drunk and got stuck in a pair of my dad's shorts...front end stuck in one leg, rear end in the other. My grandparent's Dachshund Snoozy who drank coffee, Scooter the Scottish Terrier that would attack the end of a hose if it was turned on, and Ozone...a tabby cat who was the best mole hunter. All with unique traits and memories.

Elmo the cat was a special cat. I am not the most loyal cat lover...allergies make it hard, but Elmo was one of my favorites. He was one of two from the same litter that my ex wife and I got shortly after we were married in 1996. We got his brother Goofy first in September, Then got Elmo in November.

Goofy and Elmo were farm kittens that lived on a farm near my ex parent-in-laws near Battle Creek. Goofy was not weened when we got him so I got the doll baby bottle and did the duties. Getting Elmo was tough. We went to the farm and when we were about to pick him up to take him home he took off, ran to the barn and hid. Had to wait until two days later when they finally retrieved the cat from the barn and brought it to us.

Our reasoning in getting two kittens from the same litter was so that they could keep each other occupied so that there would be no mischief. That proved to be a false bit of reasoning when that Christmas while my ex and I were at work they pulled down the Christmas tree and destroyed it and the decorations on it. Pretty hefty work for 5 month-old kittens.

Elmo had the distinct habit of attacking my feet while I was asleep when we first got him. This practice would prove useful when my ex was ready to give birth to the twins in 1997. He kept attacking my feet when her water broke in the middle of the night until I got up. He was very intelligent as well. Most cats when you call their name would be finicky and ignore you, or casually come when they felt like it. Elmo would come right away, always giving a "meow" each time I would say his name.

He had very unique culinary tastes. He loved McDonald's french fries, black olives and tuna. I used to make tuna salad for sandwiches for me to take to work. As soon as I opened the can in the electric can opener he would come and beg for tuna, which I treated him to a couple select morsels each time. After awhile all he had to do was hear the electric can opener and he was there. Even if I wasn't opening a can of tuna, whether chili or a can of coffee, he would still be there begging for his tuna fix.

Over the past couple months I noticed Elmo getting rather thin. I told my ex and she said she noticed it too. Then three weeks ago he slowly walked up to me wanting me to pet him. I bent down and gently stroked his head and scratched his ears. His head raised up as always, stretching his neck out to show his enjoyment of the attention, but then he lost his balance from the neck stretch and fell down on his side. I informed my ex of this and we both agreed that he was not doing well.

The week of July 19th it was my wife's visit week with the kids. This past Sunday she called me to let me know that Elmo was not well at all and she doubted he would make it to yesterday...the day her visit week ended and I would see the kids again. I told her that he would hang on until he saw me.

Yesterday I picked up the kids from the pool and took them to the house. Once there I went to where the kids told me Elmo was. As I came to where he was, I called him by his nickname we gave him as a kitten, "Mosers". He picked up his head from the pillow he was resting on, looked right at me and answered to his name with the "meow" he always did...laboring to get it out, but he still did. I sat with him talking, petting him and scratching his ears, which he still tried to show he loved by stretching his neck.

Today, after picking up the kids from the summer learning program at school and going to the house, Elmo was still hanging on. I called "Hi Mosers" and he meowed...much weaker than the day before. He couldn't pick up his head to look at me, and didn't respond to petting and the ear scratch other than opening his eyes and looking at me.

The entire afternoon, he would meow in pain every so often, and I would go up and check on him. The last time he meowed, I came to see him struggling to breathe. My eyes welled up, I bent down to pet him, and told him, "Elmo, it's time to let go. You were a good cat, and I will miss you. But it's your time to go home and not suffer anymore." With that he gave a weak meow, took one deep breath, then shut his eyes for the last time.

The twins and I dug a grave for him in the back yard near the catnip that he loved to frolic in. My ex and youngest daughter brought Elmo out in a blanket. We then said goodbye to a very unique and much loved cat. We came back in to his brother Goofy staring up at us...looking lost. I petted Goofy and gave an ear scratch. He stretched his neck in approval and looked right at me as I said his name...and he meowed.

I am not a real cat person because of allergies, so more than likely I will not have any more cats as pets in my lifetime. But I will sure remember the last cats that were in my life...Goofy and especially a very unique and intelligent cat named Elmo.

Rest in peace, Mosers.

The Toilet Paper Doppelganger

Being a single dad can be fun, but a lot of times it is exhausting. After time in at work and time with the kids there’s not much me time. What me time I do get I utilize to the fullest to enjoy things that I like…that are my life.

However, with such a hectic itinerary I tend to make shopping a low priority. Besides dealing with my packed schedule, the fact that I dislike large “super center” stores and their U-Scan lanes contribute to this prioritizing of shopping.

So, with this dislike in my psyche, I came home one night earlier this week from a long day. Along the way I was the strategist in taking care of the evening’s proclaimed tasks before settling in for the night; drop off leftovers at work for lunch the next day and pick up a pair of movie tickets for friends so that they can enjoy a movie out on me for their 1st wedding anniversary.

I get home after my extended time on the road, and like any single dad ran to the bathroom to seek relief from road rumble on my bladder. When I enter, I notice it immediately…the item I subconsciously put on the low priority rung of the ladder. I was out of toilet paper. So, with a sigh, I resigned myself to go back out in the car and make the quick drive to the local “super center” to get bathroom tissue on rolls.

Late evening trips to the super center store are always a joy; searching 10 minutes for a parking spot, being held up at the entrance by some fool standing in the middle of the entranceway staring up at the ceiling like they are lost and have never been in a super center ever before in their lives. And don’t get me started on trying to get past people waddling in the middle of the aisle, pushing their shopping cart at a negative 2 MPH.

I get to the aisle with the toilet paper, grab a Charmin™ 12 pack of double roll size because it’s on sale, and spin to head towards the registers up front. It was on the way to check out that I had an unnerving experience.

Halfway up to the check out, a man turns into the aisle in front of me. At first I don’t pay attention and continue my stride. But as I continue to head up front a cascade of thoughts hit me as he’s walking in front of me. He has a green shirt on…just like mine. He’s wearing tan dress slacks…just like mine. And under his arm he is carrying a 12 pack double roll size package of bathroom tissue that is on sale…just like mine! And in that moment, I came to the realization that walking in front of me was MY TOILET PAPER SHOPPING DOPPELGANGER!!!

A warning light flashed in my mind. He and I were walking in perfect lockstep…like marching in formation in the infantry. My brain flashed back to Air Force Basic Training in San Antonio and my T.I. with the thick Mexican accent as he called off cadence while we did marching drills. He also used to tell us constantly to “keep yur choos pit chined” (Keep your shoes spit-shined) and to not take forever in the latrine in the morning when we went to “chit and chave” (obvious…do I need to translate?). Add the fact we had similar clothes on and both of us the same 12 pack of toilet paper under our left arm, and you have a weird visual.

This was too freaky of a coincidence for me to want to be affiliated with. People just can’t process seeing such an occurrence as this without jumping to some oddball opinion. I’m mimicking the guy in front of me. I’m lost and following him to lead me back to the parking lot. Or we’re a two-man space alien army from another planet come to deplete Earth of all its bathroom tissue. In less than a second my brain freaked out and put into effect a plan of evasive action…execute a bob, weave and navigate away.

I immediately ducked left through the pallet sale items in the middle of the main aisle, nearly knocking over a methodically and artistically stacked mountain of chicken noodle soup cans – something some employee took hours of his day to create. Unfortunately, the maneuver put me in the path of a large woman in a power chair nearly running me over.

I then took the long way to the checkouts, into the frozen foods, through produce, a quick trot through the cleaning products aisle where I find they actually carry the replacement bulbs for my lava lamp, up through produce and past the bakery. The U-Scan is up ahead and no sign of my doppelganger. Home free!

As I stand in line for the U-Scan, I notice a young woman looking at me and smiling. So I smile back. Then, she smiles even bigger. I begin to wonder if she is really smiling back at me or someone else? My brain tells me to turn around and look behind me. Right behind me in line is my toilet paper doppelganger, smiling back at the young woman.

Automatically, my eyes darted to the ground. Of course, my “choos were pit chined”.

Do we really know everything?

It seems that we always have the right answers. However, it also seems we don’t use them to make the right decisions.

The previous stream of semi-conscious thought came on me this weekend like the first pain you feel when you realize you have a bad sunburn. And it gave me revelation, an epiphany of sorts.

It spawned from a conversation I had with my kids in the car on the way home from school Friday. The elder twin Jason needs to pass a test in Central and South America geography in order to “graduate” to 7th grade. So I started quizzing capitals of countries.

“What’s the capital of Argentina?” I fired.

“Buenos Aries.” He replied.

“Panama?”

“Panama City.”

“Nicaragua?”

A slight pause, “Ummm….Manyana?”

I smirked, “Close, but no cigar. Managua. The capital of Peru?”

Now Jason was stumped. You could see the cogs of his mind grinding away like someone trying to shift a manual 5-speed transmission into 1st gear without depressing the clutch.

“Lima.” I revealed, after seeing enough facial contortion from Jason racking his brain before I lost self-control and began to laugh out loud.

“I knew that!” Jason retorted, as if to imply I hadn’t given him enough time to answer. Hey, you only get 10 seconds to answer on Jeopardy. I gave him nearly 20.

From my view, the state of everything lately has become a big realization that we all knew the answers but failed to apply them. There’s the credit crisis of extending more than what people could pay off, then Washington bailing them out with a little “nod, nod, wink, wink”. Then the automotive sector gloom and doom. We keep saying we knew the answers, yet we still are in this mess.

Banks were overextending credit back in the mid to late 1920s that people couldn’t pay back. And anyone who paid attention in American History class knows what happened back then. Not to say things are as bad as during the Great Depression…yet. But things are pretty screwed up economically right now.

As a kid in school I remember several teachers over the years say the same quote, “As GM goes, so goes the nation.” Growing up in the Detroit area you were aware of GM’s standing in the economic stream; the number one corporation in the world. Yet the same cats in Washington that swooped in to save the financial sector are balking at the same swooping in to save the auto industry.

The reality is that we as a planet have progressed beyond any stretch of the imagination in just the past 150 years. Photography, telephony, motion pictures, recorded audio, video, satellites, computers, the Internet, breakthroughs in health and science and space exploration have been the meteoric rise of progress we have all seemed to grow accustomed to. Hell, we even have radio-controlled cars and battery powered toothbrushes! The rub it seems is that we can’t come up with a solution to keep things moving forward without backsliding every so often.

Part of backsliding is obsolescence that progress brings. The cotton gin did away with the hundreds of man-hours to separate cottonseed from raw cotton fibers. Slide rules met their maker with the advent of the hand-held electronic scientific calculator. And of course, digital audio recording, delivery and storage made boom boxes so passé. Everybody has their iPods now…even me. Too bad that hasn’t affected those “thump rides” that vibrate the entire house at 3 AM when they drive by…sometimes so much the windows rattle.

However, this is not the case across the board. Television didn’t cripple the movie industry like they said it would in the 1950s. Wendy’s hasn’t put Burger King out of business. And when I cook on the grill, I still prefer charcoal over LP gas.

I lived an adventurous life. One far from perfect, I had to climb and scrap for a lot of footing I’ve gained over the years…learning a lot of things by trial and error. Not listening to parental advice, making bad choices, relationships, fatherhood and divorce. But since I’ve been through all that life experience knowledge from the School of Hard Knocks, I have no excuse to not know the answers to the tough questions I have right now. Do I pursue a relationship with a woman again? Do I take on new creative projects that are a bit outside my current platforms? Do I switch to boxers from briefs?

By George, this could be the breakthrough I’ve been looking for all these years!...

…or maybe not.

Memories come in all shapes and sizes

Yesterday was a very busy day. One filled with emotion, panic, worry, hope, relief and sadness. And each emotion was backed up by a memory from times past.

My oldest twin boy Jason suffered a head injury yesterday. An 11-year-old boy being an 11-year-old boy. Swinging by his arms between two tables, he slipped and fell hard - right on his head. He was in bad shape.

When my ex-wife called with the news, everything stopped. Emotions flooded over me. Then the memories hit. At first the recent time line recall of Natasha Richardson and her accident last week. Hit her head, everything seemed fine at first then…gone. You can imagine what that memory did to a dad who can freak out about his kids at the drop of a hat.

Then the “longer ago” recall began to take effect and I flashed back to my auto accident in 1999 where I was rear-ended at 70 MPH while stopped dead on I-94. By all rights, I should have died. Crushed the vehicle I was in into a sardine can. Then I began remembering the worried look in the eyes of my then 2-year-old twin boys as they saw me in ER – on a morphine drip with tubes and wires and my face badly damaged with teeth missing and facial parts rearranged – barely hanging on.

Thankfully, Jason is OK. The CT came back negative for hematoma. He now sports a huge bruised bump on his noggin the size of a golf ball. I will talk to the doctors today about having an EEG done just to play it safe.

However, one more event yesterday brought back the flood of emotions and memories. The event was not as traumatic, but still brought back the recall.

While I was waiting for the results of Jason’s CT scan, I went to an area of the hospital with WiFi internet to check email on my laptop. It was then I found out the news that former Tiger great George Kell had passed away at age 86 in Arkansas.

The flood of emotions hit me again. Sad to hear of the Hall Of Fame 3rd baseman and Tiger broadcaster’s passing. However, this time, the memories took me further back… back to a time of my childhood that filled my heart with much fondness.

Growing up as a kid in Metro Detroit in the 1960’s, you followed Detroit Tiger baseball two ways – on the radio and on the TV in black and white. Of course, going to Tiger Stadium as a kid, the vision of all the lush green interior was amplified in a kids mind, especially since the only other way I saw it was on our big old Airline black and white TV. Yeah. TV in black and white. With only channels 2 -13 until we got the UHF converter box. Yep, there was a converter box long ago…before the current DTV one.

And on the TV doing the Tiger games was George Kell. Kell was a former player with the Tigers in the late 1940s through the early 1950s. He had a laid-back drawl that just made you feel at ease, giving you everything you needed to know about the game’s progress. Much like his radio counterpart, the Hall Of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell. It figures, since Kell’s first stint at calling play-by-play was with Harwell doing a Baltimore Orioles game when Kell was injured .

Baseball was a big part of my childhood. Playing catch with my grandpa, Little League, pick-up games at Cherry Hill and Levagood Park, as well as Ford Field (the original one in Dearborn - long before the stadium Ford Field in Detroit was built).

My dad would tell me of George Kell’s glory days as a player with the Tigers. “Best 3rd baseman to ever play the game.” he would recall. Kell won the batting title in 1949 while with the Tigers, beating out the immortal Ted Williams by a fraction of a batting average percentage - .3429 to William’s .3247.

The following year was George Kell’s best. He walloped 56 doubles, led the league with 218 hits, and set personal highs with 101 runs batted in and 114 runs scored. He hit .340, second to Billy Goodman of the Red Sox in the race for the batting title. No one would hit as many doubles in any year until 2000, when Todd Helton slugged 59 for the Colorado Rockies.

George Kell joined the booth after Tigers broadcaster Mel Ott was killed in an automobile accident in 1958. On George’s recommendation, Ernie Harwell came to Detroit in 1960 as the radio voice of the Tigers, beginning a legendary 42-year career with the team.

"He had two outstanding careers, one as a baseball player, one as a baseball announcer," Harwell said yesterday. "He was certainly an icon in Detroit and Michigan."

I met George Kell in the latter years of his life when the Tigers were the ALCS in 2006 and Kell threw out the first pitch. It was quite a moment meeting such a great baseball man – both player and broadcaster. He was truly a class act – one of the nicest guys one could ever meet.

So, yesterday was a memory day for me. Memories of childhood and childhood play, the fun, scrapes and bruises that come with it as well. And memories of a great and gentle man who excited generations of baseball fans and Tiger fans as well.

Being single can suck

This past Tuesday marked the third anniversary of my return to single-dom…if that’s even a word. Not a momentous occasion by any stretch of the imagination.

There are no greeting cards for the anniversary of becoming single again. I could just see one in my mind’s eye, sitting in the rack in the card aisle at Meijer. The outside: “Happy Anniversary on being single…” Inside: “…LOSER!” You don’t get a cake, either, though you should. One of those Bill Knapps chocolate cakes with decorative frosting on top depicting a forehead with the universal thumb-and-forefinger at 90-degrees sign. You could market that and it would probably be a hot seller.

Best that one celebrating one’s anniversary of single-ness can do is go out and get drunk. Fortunately, this past Tuesday was St. Patrick’s Day. Which makes my anniversary of single-dom an international holiday where drinking is the acceptable celebratory behavior around the global community. Unfortunately, I had to do the radio thing the next morning and be as always sharp on my game, so the usual Bloody Mary was out. Thus my invention – the non-alcoholic Bloody Mary. Red Bull and V-8. Red Bull for that extra kick to get you started on an early morning after a night of straight shots of Irish whiskey…V-8 to help keep you regular through those same whiskey shots. Yummy.

After the morning show I like to go outside and decompress by watching the squirrels that live behind the station across the street in the woods. The same squirrels that Tim complains daily about on the show that pilfer food from his beloved bird feeder. The morning after my single-dom anniversary celebration of mirth and madness, I was witness to the aforementioned squirrels engaged in mating rituals. Though I'm normally unperturbed by my single-ness, I felt a twinge of jealousy. So, I yelled at them "Get a room!” They looked up at me for a second with an expression of annoyance as if to say, “Excuse me?!?” then continued on with their moment of raw animal husbandry.

As a single person, society and the trappings of media indoctrination has trained me to feel this way about my single-ness. I mean, look at Disney movies, which, unfortunately, I do quite a bit since not only am I single but a single dad whose kids love to go to these flicks. Whenever love is a focal point of the movie’s plot…which is about 95% of these vehicles…how many friggin’ animals are chasing each other? As least in Disney movies, they aren’t humping each other like crazed, sex starved rabbits on a mission to overpopulate the world. This is what Animal Planet on cable is for. This is why I don’t watch Animal Planet…I’d be throwing things at my TV.

You see, my problem with being single is that whenever I am interested in a woman, I wind up in the proverbial hell of single-dom known as “The Friend Zone”. And, of course, everyone around you has advice for you on how to beat this. Usually these well-meaning folk are younger that you and try to play themselves off as wise sages on the subject of getting the girl and having tons of sex. “You’ve gotta be the Alpha male, dude!” they say. Or “Let them pursue you.” No kidding! Having more years in the game than these wise sages for friends I’ve gone both routes, even using both in the same pursuit. Neither strategy has been a winner.

You can argue all you want…but men and women both want the same thing. The pinnacle of relationships. Finding a special person that is the perfect one, the perfect chemistry between the two of you, connection on all levels, and the most glorious sex two people could ever have for the rest of their natural lives. Dream on, people!!! In actuality our psyches tend to screw things up for us, thus rendering us clueless at times on how to pursue each other.

Guys tend to go overboard once they have experienced the “pretty parts” of a woman first-hand, and begin wearing their hearts on their sleeve, or as my uncle used to say, “…start thinking with the wrong head.” Then, blam! Women begin to think that all we want is the sex, even though deep down women do enjoy sex. And guys become all dejected and go home to porn and whiskey.

Or we tend to go after the wrong types. This usually is when we go after someone that doesn’t fit our criteria. Or someone who is not as into us as we first thought. The result? We then sabotage a potential good relationship that comes along with our fear that it will go bad. Then usually find a relationship that will eventually turn out bad. Problem here is once we wake up to this, the potential good relationship we blew off for the one we thought would be good, but went south, is now a gone prospect. Then we revert to spending the lonely evenings at home. Guys… booze and porn. Women…chocolate (or wine) and romance novels (or “chick flick” movie rentals)…which is just a woman’s version of booze and porn.

A guy meets a woman and they become friends. They get along great, go out on a social endeavor and wind up spending the night together. They seem to become close, until the dude expresses that always emotion-evoking sentiment “I love you”. Either in actual words or in actions. Then, all of a sudden it becomes a game of ying-yang. First she plays the “I’m just not that into you” card. Then the next moment spills her guts on what she wants in a relationship. Then, shazam! On to another guy and the first guy is given the silent treatment and treated like he’s not even a friend. Basically she’s stating to the first guy, “Well, now I have to find a new best friend." In my world that would tell me that I’m actually the one who needs to get a new best friend. Thanks for the heads-up. So much for the "got to be friends before you can be lovers" saying we've been fed by the likes of Delilah and other relationship experts.

So this weekend, I’m going to a Disney flick at the theater, and when the ‘love’ scenes come on, I’m throwing things at the screen. Then I’m taking a rifle to the station on Monday and have target practice on the frisky squirrels.

As my uncle used to say, “Women…you can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em, and you can’t shoot ‘em.”

A boy and his pet

Since the beginning of time, young boys have desired pets. However, once in awhile, the pet desired can be a bit out of our realm of understanding as far as an average pet.

I was not your 'average' boy growing up. Just ask my dad. He'll be sure to roll his eyes and say, "You've got that right!" I had a desired pet - a dachshund named Schätzchig (German for "Sweetheart"). Far from an average pet. Most of my friends had normal dog breeds - terrirer, Labrador, German Shepherd, Poodle - with normal names like Rover, Spot, Duke and Fifi. Not me. I had a wiener dog with a funny German name.

So when our Chocolate Lab, Cocoa, died this past summer, my kids were heartbroken. But, as kids are, they soon began to ask my ex and I if we could get another dog. The ex was not too keen on that idea.

My oldest twin boy Jason missed Cocoa the most. However, Jason has a unique taste in pets. Plus he has a "Dr. Doolittle" aire about him. He would capture fireflies, butterflies and frogs and was good at keeping them. He once caught a bird with his bare hands at age 4. As of late he has had some unique pets - crickets, hermit crabs and recently a box turtle.

So when Christmas came around, Jason asked for a pet. Not a dog, cat, hermit crab, turtle... or even a bird. He wanted a Leopard Gecko.

Jason first decided he wanted a Leopard Gecko this past summer not long after Cocoa died. I was doing a remote at the Oldtown Blues Festival for Classic Hits 92-X when an employee from the local pet store came down with a Monitor lizard. Jason was immediatly transfixed by the big lizard and began to ask the employee a ton of questions about the Monitor. The lizard guy told Jason that a good starter lizard to get would be a Gecko. Jason decided on a Leopard Gecko because "they look cool!"

So for this past Christmas, Jason got all the things he needed to keep a Gecko - terrerium tank, sand, heat lamps, dishes, calcium and all the equipment needed. Now all I have to get is the Gecko. I plan on doing this soon. Of course, the pet store where the Monitor Lizard guy works is the place Jason wants to get the Gecko, so that's where we will be purchasing it. After Christmas they ran out. A new shipment just recently came in, and now we are waiting for the 'observation period' to expire before the members of this new shipment of Geckos are available for purchase (one of the things I like about this pet store!).

And then, we can start a new chapter in pet history...a boy and his Leopard Gecko. Hopefully he won't name the thing Schätzchig.