This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 12

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 12

I got married in 1977 and it wasn’t until 2 years later that we went on a honeymoon, unless you call driving across the country and moving to San Francisco as one.   

The night before we got married, we sneaked out and saw the Star Wars, on our 3^rd anniversary we went to The Empire Strikes Back and on our 6^th anniversary we went to Return of the Jedi.  By my calculations there should be 12 Star Wars’ movies and they are working on the thirteenth.  

I was talking to my wife awhile back and she said that she talked to our eldest son and that he had a job interview that day and one the next day.  I said I guess that he has a black suit for that. 

On a trip to Chicago for an interview to podiatry school, I came by a backgammon store.  On the way back after the interview, I went back to the store and bought my girlfriend a backgammon set.  Little did she know that I was planning on getting it back.  After an accepted proposal, today I still have the backgammon set and the same girlfriend.  

For the most part, I do not gamble.  I used to say that the only money that I would lose in Las Vegas were the coins that I would put in the pay phone to call home when I was away at a seminar. Now there are cell phones.    

We once went to Las Vegas with friends and my in-laws.  The only thing that we lost was my mother in-law in Caesars’ Palace.  We searched for a long time and we did not find her.  She had gone back to the hotel where we were staying without telling anyone.  Not to say that my father in-law was upset, but we did not see him until the next day as we were going down for breakfast and he was leaving the casino after a night of card play and heading to his room to sleep.  

I have told you that I am ambidextrous.   What I did not tell you is whether I could do anything well with either hand.

When I was a kid in Oak Park Michigan, I loved to fly kites.  I would start with a paper kite, add a tail and off I would go.  We would run and run, just trying to catch a little wind to get it up in the air.  When I had children, we would take them out to Santa Barbara California to fly kites.  All I had to do was put the kite together, sit down and let the kite go straight up.   

People ask me if any of my children went into medicine.  The simple answer is no.  The long answer is that I did not want to do what my father did either.  He was an engineer.  When I was young, I remember my father being laid off every so many years.  I did not understand this.  He worked for Ford, Chrysler, Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) and at the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) in Warren Michigan to end his career.  It turns out that engineers would lose their jobs when government contracts changed.  I just did not like that idea.  As for my children and their reason why they choose something else, you would have to ask them.   

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 11

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 11

I am so old that I remember that if you wanted to send a note to someone across the country, you actually had to take out a piece of paper and a pen, write the note, put it into an envelope, put a stamp on it and put it in a mailbox and wait days for the other person to receive it.   

I am so old that I remember a time when the most important thing you had to worry about was that you had to be home when it turned dark.  And usually it wasn’t until you heard you mother screaming for you down the street or a neighbor telling you the same that you went home.  

I am not a gambler.  For years, I bowled in a ‘scratch’ bowling league which had cash prizes.  There were also side bets.  I never entered the side bets until someone let it slip that the other guys would put money on my bowling and when I hit a good game they would make the money. From that time on, I started putting in on the side bets.  My best season was one where I made enough money to cover my expenses, buy a new bowling ball and bag for my two balls.  Essentially I bowled for free that season.   

This Week's Very Short Story: Very Special Edition on the marriage of Amanda Tanowitz and Shawn Tanowitz.  Last night I went to the wedding of the daughter of my two friends. I have known them before their daughter was born.  When the daughter announced her engagement, I had heard a song that prompted me to make a video of pictures including the music for the newly engaged to congratulate them.  Prior to the wedding, I heard a song which was about a father giving away his daughter and said that I need to make another video.  I asked the mother if it was ok for me to make a video to be used as the father – daughter dance and was given approval.  The mother gave me pictures to add to the ones I have taken of them over the years.   When I finished the video, I call the mother and told her that it was done and that I had to have it approved by my boss, (my wife :)  , but that I think it was ready because it made me cry.  This is what I made for Amanda and her father. It was played at the wedding last night.   

For years, I took pictures of baseball players on the teams my son played on.  The coaches gave me access to go and photograph in areas where others did not, because I stayed in the back ground and did not interfere.  The parents and players liked the pictures that I took that I either printed for them or put them up on the web site.  The hardest person to photograph was my son.  The hardest picture to get was one with the two of us.  

In high school and college, I was always pro-choice in choosing what book to read for class.  I choose the one with the fewest pages.  

One thing that my wife never has to worry about is that I would drink her coffee.  

When I was getting into the elevator at my mother’s assisted living place, one resident gets in the elevator with me and asks if I am going to dinner.  I replied that I was going to pick up dinner and that I do not live here and that my mother lives upstairs.  She says that they won’t be able to tell the difference.  She then goes on to ask me if I am married.  I tell her that I have been married a long time.  She asks if my wife is still here.  I tell her that my wife is upstairs with my mother and my son.  The door opens and we go our separate ways.  I guess that I missed out on a dinner date.    

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 10

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 10

My younger son was always competitive.  Most people think it was all the sports he played, playing baseball, football and basketball in high school.  No, it started much earlier.  In second grade, he competed in reading with a classmate for the highest color and level of reading assignments.  He did get ahead when she went out of the country for an extended vacation with her parents.  

My college roommate in San Francisco was born in California.  In Michigan when it gets cold, you turn up the heat.  So when it got cold in San Francisco, I would turn up the heat. He would turn it down. He would tell me to have a cup of coffee or put on a sweatshirt. That was our dance.  I have now lived in California long enough that I now put on a sweatshirt.    

Awhile back we were moving out an oak entertainment center that we had for many years. I never realized that over the years that the entertainment center gained weight just like I had. 

As a freshman in college living in Akers Hall at Michigan State, someone had this crazy idea to gather up all the toilet paper in the dorm. The next idea was to spike the chocolate milk with Ex-lax.  I don’t think they ever went ahead with that part.   Someone should look under the closed cupboard next to the sink in the common room,  on the first floor and see if there is a bunch of old toilet paper, though.

I started cooking when I was in college.  I cooked for my roommates too.  Early on I found that I liked cooking better than cleaning up.  Once my roommates got tired that I did not have to clean up and they decided to make me dinner so that I had to clean up.  They cooked hotdogs and beans.    

One of my first dishes that I started cooking in college was spaghetti with meat sauce.  Just like my Italian mother taught me.  

In East Lansing during college there was a restaurant that had a salad bar where you could eat as much as you could on one plate, one time through.  The engineering students would have been proud of the way we were able to stack the plate at least 6-7 inches high with no spilling over.  

I am so old that I remember when the Big Ten actually had 10 teams.  

I am so old that I remember when the legal drinking age was 18.  

I am so old that I remember that we had to walk to school and home through the snow and there were no line up of minivans or SUV’s dropping off or picking up the other children. 

I am so old that I remember paying 19 cents a gallon for gas in Oak Park and that I would not go across the street into Detroit and pay 17 cents because I did not trust the station.   

One day when I was leaving work, I said have a great evening to another leaving employee.  She replied that this is the best time of the day.  I thought about that and now realize that the best time of the day is when you wake up in the morning.   

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 9

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 9

In the beginning of 6^th grade I got a ‘D’ in math.  From then on my grades went up to the point where I went to college to major in Mathematics. 

At Lincoln Jr. High School in Ferndale Michigan I was in a lower math track during 7^th grade.  The math teacher during that year told me that I did not belong in remedial math but there was nothing he could do about it. 

My father blamed his hair loss on the helmet he wore in the army.  Good thing the only shrapnel that hit him was in the leg.  Otherwise I may not be telling you this story.  

Illogical logic:   Neither of my son’s have children.  I had not seen my son for a few years so I asked him for a picture.  He asked why and I told him I wanted to see if he had lost his hair.  Seeing his picture and knowing that my other son still has his hair, I can only come to one conclusion… in my case, that having children causes hair loss.   

There are only certain things in life that you can blame on spell check.     

When I was young I did magic tricks.  One of my tricks was that I took my hand and arm and put it through a glass door and then pulled it out without getting a cut.  That is better than what the real story was.  I would tell you what that was but I do not remember the real reason.    

My mother was born in Detroit Michigan.  Her mother passed away when she was young.  Later she moved to Florida with her father and step mother and she graduated from Miami High School in 1949.  To say that she did not like Florida would be a very nice description.   As soon as she was old enough she moved back to Detroit and lived with one of her sisters, where she met my father after he had returned from the war.  Otherwise, I would not be telling you this story.     

Years ago when I started practicing, patients would ask me if I was old enough to be the doctor so I grew a beard….. Later as I was losing my hair and my beard turned grey, I shaved it.  They don’t ask me that question anymore.   

When I go into work early, I sometimes pass these two ladies out walking together.  I do not know them, but it is like I know them.  When one of them is not there, I am worried that the other is sick.  When they are there, it is as if everything is OK in the world.  Thank you, ladies for making a good start to my day.  Maybe someday I will have the nerve to stop and show them this story and thank them.  

My two sons have always been as different as cats and dogs.  One son we would have to argue with for five hours to do 5 minutes of homework.  The other son wanted to get home right after school so that he could do his homework.  He bought into the idea where that if you finished your homework then you can do whatever you wanted to do.  And he did.  

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 8

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 8

In college, I bought a police style winter jacket because I noticed the police would be out in the cold directing traffic and they did not appear to be cold.  Today I would not wear it for fear that it might have a target on it and anyway, it would not fit.  

I called home and told my wife that I was going to stop at Trader Joe’s on the way home.  She says to bring her home a “goodie”, that she needs a “goodie”.   I answered that I am coming home, she laughed. 

  

On those television shows that help people pick a house to buy or fix up, I hear them talk about mud rooms.  That would have been any room that I was in when I was very young. 

   

Both of my younger brothers went to Camp Tamarack.  I went to Detroit Recreational Camp for one week.  It was the week from hell like in the Alan Sherman song, “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah”, except that the sun never came out.   Never did I go to overnight camp again; instead I went to day camp where I met people that I am still friends with today. 

  

My son went from Sesame Street to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right to sports…. So glad I was spared Barney.

After my first year in medical school, I went home and got married.  The next year I studied less and got better grades.  Coincidence? 

At the end of my first year in medical school in San Francisco 10 to 12 classmates went home and were married on the first weekend.  I was one of them. 

One of my sayings when I was in college when people wanted to be somewhere else was, “things could be worse, you could be in bed sleeping”.  It has come to have a different meaning as I get older. 

I don’t always remember people’s names… so if I happen to start to lose it, people may not be able to know the difference.  

I have always preferred brunettes to blondes.  I can’t decide whether this is because my mother had long black hair or my early baby sitters did.  I will leave that discussion to the psychiatrists and psychologists.

Later in life I found out that a few of my baby sitters were not that much older than I was.  The reason could be that they were so mature or I was so immature.  Probably both. 

One day when I was leaving work, another employee replied to me that the best time of the day is when she was leaving work.  My thought is that the best time of the day is when you wake up in the morning. 

  

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 7

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 7

I have bowled on many bowling teams.  I don’t remember all the people who were on my teams.  One line up that I remember from Oak Park Lanes was Robert, Neal, Neil, Neal and Archie.   

On one Friday while I was in college and living in the fraternity house, I came back to back to the apartment room and found a sign that my roommates left that said, “Take care of and feed Jeff, we all went home for the weekend”.  Jeff was the dog.  I never did tell them we had a great time as it would have ruined my image.  

For two years, when I lived in the Fraternity house apartment building,  I lived in a basement apartment.  We called it The Pit.  That pretty much explains it.  

Whether it was while golfing or bowling, my father would say that it is not nice to beat the father as I was about to beat him.   

It was during high school that I went with my father to his lawyer and he told the lawyer to list me as the executor of his will.  Way too early for me to comprehend.  

I did not go to my graduation from Michigan State University.  I was driving across the country to my next school in San Francisco California.  

When I was young, the girls would chase me.  It wasn’t until years later that I realized that I should have let them catch me.   

For most of my father’s life, I looked up to him.   He was taller than me.   

Years ago, the son of a friend noticed that quite a few of my dress work shirts had stripes on them and he started calling me “stripey”.  Years later I found him wearing stripe dress shirts to work.  

Most people know that I never have smoked.  Years ago I would tell people that when I would go back to Michigan that I smoked a pack a day.  Why you ask?  So that I would feel like I was home in Los Angeles.  (For those that don’t remember it, Smog.)   

I have a couple of friends that used to smoke.  One time to each of them, I took their cigarette, took a puff and blew the smoke back into their face.  Just because.  

During elementary school, I was on the Safety Patrol.  Aaah, the power of that white belt.   

We took my oldest son on college tours before he graduated from high school.  At the school that he would attend, the tour included the new apartment style dorm rooms, the modern cafeteria and the fitness center.  At the end of the tour, the guide asked if there were any questions.  I asked, when can I move in?   and shorter....

At the end of a college tour with my son they asked if there were any questions.  Mine was when can I move in. 

This Weeks Very Short Story: Chapter 6

This Week's Very Short Story: Chapter 6

I started wearing glasses when I was 3 years old because of crossed eyes.  Every few months I would have to have my eyes dilated, which was torture.   If I was ever taken to Guantanamo, they could forget the water boarding and just bring out the eye drops. 

  

With my very curly hair and my wife with the same, I had always thought that if we had a girl, she would be a little Shirley Temple.  It did not work, two boys with curly/wavy hair.  

   

I grew up with the belief that if it did not have chocolate and nuts, why eat it.  

   

Sometimes you have to make the big decisions in life:  Whether to facebook or to work.  

  

You know those thoughts, ideas and stories that you say to yourself that you should write down.  Well, I write them down before I forget them.   

  

There is something that I have not been able to figure out.  You go into a restaurant and they bring you a drink with a straw. What do they think; you haven’t mastered the art of drinking from a glass?  

  

I am finally coming to terms with that I played Hopscotch as a child.  

I would have had a much better time on the bus ride home from Hebrew school if I would have realized that what the girls wanted to do in the back of the bus was not going to hurt me.  

I guess my basketball career ended in sixth grade when I got elbowed on the playground at Paul L. Best elementary school and ended up with a broken tooth.  

My baseball career was very short sighted.  No, that were my glasses I wore since I was 3 years old. Not being able to hit the ball off the tee and field did not help.  Bowling did not suffer because of that problem.  

                                                                   or

I tried to play baseball, tee ball specifically, when I was young but I had a hard time seeing to hit the ball off of the tee.  I was able to see the spot on the bowling alley lane, though, and did that very well.

I have never skied.  I once took a lesson and tried cross country skiing when I lived in Riverview, Michigan.  It never snowed again that winter…..  so I moved to California.  (Alternative ending….  Do you want me back to try again?) 

My number one rule for my boys when they went away to college was…. Call you mother. (I recently added rule # 2, which is... remember rule #1. I am now ready to add rule #3... It is OK for call you father. Just in case that you think that I do not follow the rules, I try to call my mother every day, though it was not always that way.

I have mastered being a male.  I could talk to one my boys say for 45 minutes and then my wife would ask me what we were talking about.  My answer would be nothing. 

My wife would like me to wear slippers.  I have always associated slippers with being old.  Maybe I should get some slippers, a robe, a pipe and a couple of young ladies like Hugh Hefner?  I don’t think that is what she has in mind.