Exhaustion, thy name is Maxwell

Whew. My wife and I have just spent three days taking care of our 5-year-old grandson, Maxwell. Or maybe he was taking care of us. In any event, here's what he did:

* Built a Lego city in about an hour. That same task would have taken me a month. That is, a month before I gave up and threw the pieces against a wall.

* Went to Canobie Lake Park in Salem, N.H., where he rode the bumper cars (the Dodgem) six times in a row, often ignoring the traffic because he was busy looking up at the mechanism that causes a spark and propels the cars.

* Announced a career change. Instead of being a train engineer, with his grandparents as his assistants (presumably shoveling in the coal), he wants to join the State Police and operate the command center that is located within a police truck.

* Slept fitfully for a couple of hours, sending the bedsheets and pillows flying, then slept like a motionless angel for a couple of hours, then repeated the process.

* Instructed the plumber on how to tame the disaster that occurred when our outside faucet wouldn't shut off and our yard was being flooded. The plumber appreciated Maxwell's  instructions, acknowledging them with an angry grunt.

It was a marvelous three days, and I think I will recover nicely after an uninterrupted week of sleep.

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A couple of decades ago, when my daughter (a.k.a. Maxwell's mother) was about 13, I was practicing Michael Jackson's moonwalk in our kitchen when she looked up and said, "Why don't you be like other fathers and play chess or something."

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Now that the 40th anniversary of Woodstock is coming up, expect to hear from many great pretenders claiming that they were there. If all the people who say they attended the music festival were really there, the ground would have caved in, sending the attendees to the center of the earth.

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I never see anyone smoking a pipe anymore. I abhor smoking in any form, but I always thought pipe smokers looked kind of cool.

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My wife prefers to bring junk into the house by going to yard sales. I prefer to bring junk into the house by ordering on eBay and elsewhere. We heartily disapprove of each other's methods.

It was once filled with magic

I remember the dawn of television. I remember chairs lined up in an appliance store so people could sit and gawk at the pictures coming from this new wonder. I remember black-and-white pictures so small that some sets had a magnifying glass in front of the screen. I remember Tuesday night trips with my family to the local social club, where I could be in paradise watching Uncle Miltie while chomping on a nickel’s worth of pistachio nuts. I remember a friend named Bobby Kaminski, whose family was the first in the neighborhood with a TV, inviting me over to watch “Howdy Doody” and me wondering how he could ever leave the house with this magic box in residence. I remember when only three channels were available, and those channels showed a test pattern, or nothing, for much of the day.

I remember tri-colored transparent plastic sheets that people taped over their screens to give the illusion of color TV. I remember announcements that "the following program will be broadcast in compatible color."

I remember watching TV for almost three days straight when John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald were shot to death. I remember watching hours of 9/11 coverage, then turning off the TV with a sigh and playing some soft music instead. I remember the tears in the eyes of many audience members when on election night Barack Obama proclaimed to a Chicago crowd, “Change has come to America.” The TV screen was now giant and wide, the picture was in incredible-looking high definition, and the number of channels to watch was almost uncountable.

Yes, I remember the dawn, and fruition, of television. I also remember life before TV, but that’s a story for another day.

Speaking of TV, one of the dumbest shows ever was certainly “Superman” starring George Reeves. To this day, I cannot understand why Lois Lane, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, etc., never made the connection between Clark Kent disappearing and Superman arriving. I mean, those people worked for a great metropolitan newspaper, didn’t they? Oh ... maybe that’s why they never figured it out.

And speaking of newspapers, the Boston Globe appears on the brink of taking away lifetime job guarantees. I guess a lifetime just ain’t what it used to be.

When I was maybe 4 years old, I was gathering flowers (most likely dandelions) in a field when a couple of old ladies walked by. “Oh, isn’t that sweet," said one. “He’s making a bouquet for his mommy.” But she was wrong: I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to do with the flowers. I was just collecting them because collecting things for no reason is what I did, and do.

Fathers and sons -- and grandsons, too

I never will forget him

For he made me what I am 

Though he may be gone

Memories linger on

And I miss him, the old man

  --"The Old Man," sung best by John McDermott

Happy Father's Day to all you fine fellows out there. To commemorate the occasion, here are a fatherly item and a grandfatherly one.

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My older son drives a truck for a living, and is behind the wheel up to 10 hours a day. So what does he decide to do for his vacation? Drive to Virginia. I don't get it, but then there are many things about my kids that I don't get. (And I'm sure they could say the same about me.)

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I am thrice blessed! In addition to going to two preschool plays within a few weeks, I went to my grandson's preschool graduation. That's right: graduation ceremonies for preschoolers, with T-shirts and visors in lieu of caps and gowns. What next: graduation ceremonies for the babies in a hospital nursery? Anyhow, when called to receive his diploma, Maxwell decided to play the clown, staggering up to the teacher while making monkey faces. Not overly amusing.

A kiddie book with a moral for grownups

How lucky can one man be? Thanks to my grandson, I've been privileged to see two preschool plays within a month! Today's offering was "The Rainbow Fish," a story of a beautiful but selfish fishie who soon found himself isolated because of his selfishness. But when he began to share his beautiful scales, he was surrounded by friends. We should all pay heed. (By the way, my grandson, Maxwell, admirably portrayed an orange fish. But when the rainbow fish shared a scale with him, Max kind of lost interest in the play because he was quite busy playing with the scale.)

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The other day, I re-watched "Taxi Driver," released in 1976.Robert DeNiro was never that young and cab fares were never that low.

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Being born. Growing up. Going to school. Graduating. Working. Marrying. Raising children. Burying your parents. Retiring. Dying. Nine down and one to go.

A tummy-tossing trip to the old ball game

When I was in the third grade, I was named a last-minute substitute to go to a Red Sox game with the third-grade patrol boys. I was so excited that I threw up my milk at lunchtime. I don't get that excited about many things anymore.

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At that age, I really didn't understand how baseball was played, but I did see my father's hero Ted Williams get a hit. I think that later today I will buy a Ted Williams T-shirt, sporting number 9, to commemorate the event.

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In those days, third-graders were entrusted to stop traffic with red flags on long poles and let pupils cross the street. That would be unthinkable today, yet I suspect the patrol boys of yore were often more alert than some of the people I see doing the job now. And they certainly earn more than  a once-a-year Red Sox trip to Fenway Park was worth ... in those days, anyway.

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Did you know that the letters in "ELEVEN PLUS TWO" can be rearranged to read "TWELVE PLUS ONE"? Amazing.

The unkindest cuts of all

I guess you could call yesterday Bloody Tuesday. In the morning my wife cut her finger badly in the kitchen, so we roared off to our HMO ... where we waited and waited. By the time they got to her, it's a wonder there was any blood left. Then in the afternoon, we heard the person who handles our savings alibi about why the account has been bleeding red ink.

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Speaking of money, I am learning that most bloggers make virtually none. I guess that's why the call the Internet a virtual world.

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You know how you sometimes mishear song lyrics? For a half century, when the chorus in Jimmy Dorsey's "So Rare" sang about "Angels singing the Ave Maria," I thought the lyrics were, "Angels singing way off in the rear."

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I don't mean to make a career out of writing about John Updike, but his final short-story collection contains a great quote: "It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you."

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Years ago, I worked at a newspaper that had a photographer named Pete Zaharis. It didn't take long for our summer interns to name him Pizza Harris. (One of those interns went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.)

You've gotta love that shrieking duck!

Those insurance ads featuring a duck yelling 'AFLAC!" just get better and better. My father-in-law loved those ads so much that he would shout "AFLAC!" at random, and one time greeted a bride and groom as they walked down the church aisle after the cremony with "AFLAC!"  When he died, we buried him with a stuffed Aflac duck.

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I always thought there was something smarmy about Arthur Godfrey.

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I knew I shouldn't have stepped on the scales. I knew there was a reason I was avoiding weighing myself.

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Rachel Maddow is an American original.

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I can actually date when I gave up on popular music. It was after I heard Strawberry Alarm Clock singing "Incense and Peppermints."

 

Freddy is on the loose, or soon will be

Freddy the kitten may be little but he is devilishly clever. When I arrived at my daughter's house, Freddy was on the inside but not for long. He was cleverly moving a window screen that he had attached himself to, and soon half of him had found freedom. I was very sorry to do so but called attention to his escape plans.

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Many retired journalists write books or teach classes. I have never wanted to do either. So proud.

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Everybody has a Web page these days. My 82-year-old aunt has a Web page.

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I know this is out of season, but the other day I found myself thinking about how when I was 8 or so, I would go on a Great Chestnut Hun, scouring yards and streets for the fallen nuts and collecting them by the hundreds. I would admire their glossy coats and smooth bodies but after a few days it would dawn on me that the chestnuts served no useful purpose. Into the rubbish they would go. I repeated this practice for three or four years, I think.

Two lives that turned a final page

The other day I brought home "My Father's Tears," which presumably is the final collection of short stories by John Updike. When the author died in January, in a hospice in the town I live in, I found myself thinking about my friend Dick Iwanowicz, who died three decades ago of a brain aneurism. Dick was a big fan of Updike's writings, but his German-born wife thought they had a depressing effect on her husband. "You read too much of this Oopdeek," she used to tell him. So when I heard that Updike died, I remembered that unique pronunciation, and off and on throughout the day, despite my wife's withering glare, I shouted, "OOPDEEK! OOPDEEK!" in tribute to a great writer and to a good friend.

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My wife and I went to a health forum yesterday. The main speaker, a feel-good kind of guy, said something like, "We can't control what happens to us, but we can control our reaction to it." Gee, when something adverse happens to me, I usually shout, "OH F***!!!!!" in a voice loud enough to split the skies. It has a most satisfying effect.

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Cherry Dr Pepper is pretty good. That's something I've never said about regular Dr Pepper. (And, by the way, if you look at the can or bottle, you will see that "Dr" is not followed by a period.)

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Whatever happened to the "reasonable facsimile"? I remember announcers used to say things like, "Send in the coupon or a reasonable facsimile and we will mail you some useless junk." I suppose nowadays they would say, "Send in the coupon or Xerox that puppy." They still would send you useless junk, however.

The PT Cruiser rides into automotive history

This is the month that Chrysler officially stops making PT Cruisers, but what a ride it has been!

The roomy and retro car debuted in the 2000 model year, looking like no other car -- or at least no other car in the last half-century. The public fell in love, and Cruisers began to sell for as much as 10,000 over list.

Then a funny thing happened. People who bought the car because of its looks began to change them. They added chrome or flames or wood paneling, or sometimes all three. Cruiser owners who would wave or toot at other owners began holding gatherings, in Modesto, Calif., Niagara Falls, Wildwood, N.J., and indeed throughout much of the country. In some, more than 500 Cruiser owners would show up to vie for prizes or just to admire other participants' cars.

But, as they say, all good things must end. Apparently most everyone who wanted the  quirky car bought one, because sales began to slump. The cars took up semi-permanent residence on dealer lots, and Chrysler decided to put on the brakes. 

Many owners, however, still love their Cruisers, are keeping them in good repair, and wouldn't trade them for any other vehicle. Count me among those owners.

UPDATE: Chrysler has abruptly shifted into reverse and announced that it will continue to make PT Cruisers after all. For how long is a question yet to be answered.

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Yesterday as I was taking a brisk walk, a guy I didn't even know started telling me how we "older fellas" have to keep active. Older fellas? I kept active by punching him out.

That Gina is one angry woman, I'll tell ya

Sometimes, just for kicks, I ignore the directions my GPS gives me and take a radically different route. I like to get her all angry and frustrated and even screaming at me. I say "her" because a female voice gives the directions. Her name, I decided, is Gina Pamela Smith, or G.P.S. I have two other GPSes, one named Gertie Patricia Smith and the other, Giselle Pauline Smith. I believe they are sisters.

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Watch the ending of "Marley & Me" without shedding a tear, I dare you.

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I think John Lennon's most profound lyric is, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." For Bob Dylan, it is, "He not busy being born is busy dying." Coming in second are "He bag production, he got walrus gumboot" for Lennon and "See the primitive wallflower freeze/When the jelly-faced women all sneeze" for Dylan.

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I cannot believe it is June already. Oh no I cannot.

Bart and Homer extend their deepest sympathies

I've just purchased a large quantity of the new 44-cent U.S. postage stamps depicting the Simpsons -- Bart, Homer, Lisa, Marge, et al. Just one problem: Suppose I have to stick a stamp on a sympathy card.

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There's a funny song out there by Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys (great name!) as well as the Corrigan Brothers, titled "There's No One As Irish As Barack Obama." You see, his great-great-great grandfather, or something like that, was from Ireland, although why that would make no one as Irish is still a mystery to me. Anyway, my favorite lines are, "He’s in the White House/He took his chance/Now let’s see Barack do Riverdance." You can find the lyrics and video here. (Click on the second video.)