It's Game Time

There are a lot of Christmas traditions. These are mine.

Week 1 tree goes up. Week 2 window lights on. Week 3 cards get mailed. Week 4 post the Rudolph story. 

That’s about all the spirit I can muster as part of a tiny, aging family whose biggest gift is that they survived to see one more Christmas. There is no gift shopping, no turkey in the oven, no kids working themselves into a frenzy, no dog wandering around with a bow stuck to its head.

As Bill Belichick would say; it is what it is.

So I continue working through my festive ‘to do’ list until I hit task number four, which should be the easiest. Just say a few hopeful words, cut and paste the Rudolph story, and everyone will ‘like’ it on Facebook and wish us a happy holiday.

But that’s where things become derailed and the skis fall off the sled, because the hopeful words are hard to muster up on this 15^th anniversary of Stephen’s death.  For the past week I’ve gotten up each morning and stared at my blank computer page, telling myself to just jot down a few merry words and not give the gift of depression this year.

But like a season-weary, injured NFL player, I’m a game time decision. I’ve had a little red X next to my name for the past week, and although I’m trying hard to rally I’m just not sure if I can dig deep enough to find any Merry in this Christmas.

Well, it’s Christmas Eve, and it’s game time.

I can almost hear the Fantasy Festivus players cheer as I put my headset on and line up to the computer. I make a few key plays, score high points for extra-long sentences and get hit with a few penalties for ‘non-excessive celebration’ as I type these words onto the screen.

These imperfect, heartful words that will be sent out into the Universe, just in case there is someone out there who feels like me and needs a cheerleader on the sidelines. Someone to say “I know it’s hard, but you can do this. Don’t think too far ahead, just think one day at a time, and on this one day, you can do this.”

For me, that cheerleader is my brother Stephen. And Rudolph.

Read it and rally my friends, it’s game time.

The Night We Saw Rudolph.

Twas the night before Christmas on Webb Street in Salem. Stephen is five years old and trying desperately to fall asleep amidst the holiday excitement and anticipation of Christmas morning.

I tell him that if Santa comes and he is still awake, he will fly right by and not bring him any toys. Just then, someone drove into the driveway of the liquor store that use to be our neighbor and put their brake lights on, causing the bedroom to glow in a bright, red light.

His eyes grew as big as saucers as he looked at the window, then at me, and muttered “Rudolph…!” just before falling asleep.

From that year forth, every Christmas Eve Stephen would turn to me and say, “Remember the night we saw Rudolph?” and we’d laugh at the memory. But as we grew to adults, I began to respond, “That wasn’t Rudolph, it was….” and before I could finish the statement he would give a little smirk and say, “SShhhh, it was Rudolph” and we’d just smile.

My brother has been gone 15 Christmases now, but I still tell this story to anyone who will listen.

Because looking back, Stephen was right.

It was indeed Rudolph.

The Stuff of Holidays

2012 was the year of moving. Moving on and moving out, professionally and personally. One move was forced, and one move was chosen, but both were equally difficult.

Not because of the physical labor of moving, although it was more working out than I’d do in an entire year of my gym membership. And not because of the enormous amount of time it takes to move, as the process of two simultaneous moves was like taking on a 2nd full time job.

It was difficult because of all the “stuff”. There was stuff in my desk, stuff in my cellar and stuff in my closets. There was stuff in the attic and stuff in the yard. There was stuff in the supply cabinets and even stuff stuffed inside of stuff. Some of it was overused, some of it was never used and some of it had outgrown its usefulness entirely.

In the aftermath of the move, there is now a lot of missing stuff. Especially holiday stuff, like my ho-ho-ho-ing Santa Clause door knocker, ornaments that never once saw a Christmas tree and more holiday plates and platters than you could eat off of in a lifetime of dinners.

But it’s all good, because Christmas shouldn’t be about ‘stuff’ anyhow. It should be about making memories that will last a lifetime.  

Memories don’t cost anything. They don’t ask you if you want an extended warrantee in case they break. They don’t require you to find an oddly shaped box to fit them in. And you don’t have to wrap up the receipt with the memory just in case someone doesn’t like it.

Because if you make a memory just right, it will stay with you forever- transporting you back to that moment each time it comes to mind, so vividly that your senses come alive at the very thought of it.

My everlasting merry memory is the night my brother Stephen and I saw Rudolph. It’s a reminder of the beauty of the season, youthful innocence and faith that anything is possible if you just believe. It’s a memory I’m blessed to have, and share.

I call it The Night We Saw Rudolph.

Twas the night before Christmas on Webb Street in Salem. Stephen is five years old and trying desperately to fall asleep amidst the holiday excitement and anticipation of Christmas morning.

I tell him that if Santa comes and he is still awake, he will fly right by and not bring him any toys. Just then, someone drove into the driveway of the liquor store that use to be our neighbor and put their brake lights on, causing the bedroom to glow in a bright, red light.

His eyes grew as big as saucers as he looked at the window, then at me, and muttered “Rudolph…!” just before falling asleep.

From that year forth, every Christmas Eve Stephen would turn to me and say, “Remember the night we saw Rudolph?” and we’d laugh at the memory. But as we grew to adults, I began to respond, “That wasn’t Rudolph, it was….” and before I could finish the statement he would give a little smirk and say, “SShhhh, it was Rudolph” and we’d just smile.

 

My brother has been gone 13 Christmases now, but I still tell this story to anyone who will listen. Because looking back, Stephen was right. It was indeed Rudolph.

 

Going (Way) Back to School

Most days I fancy myself to be young, especially if there are no mirrors around. But some things instantly make me feel old, like waking up, being called ‘Ma’am’ and seeing families shopping for back to school stuff. 

It seems like only yesterday my mother took us shopping for school clothes at Almy’s Warehouse, which was located in Shetland Park. My brother Stephen, 9 years my junior, would sit in the child seat of the carriage grabbing at the wheeled clothing racks as we passed by, dragging half of the juniors section through the store with us.  

 

Finances were tight, but that didn't stop us from wearing the current trends, which one year included an entire wardrobe of hot pant outfits accompanied by white plastic go-go boots. My back to school hairdo was dark brown roots emerging from faux blonde hair- the result of an obsessive use of “sun in” - a hair bleaching spray made out of some kind of combination of lemon juice and Clorox that was wildly popular.

In a back to school time capsule somewhere exists the ancient tools that were essential- a pencil box, #2 pencils with a sharpener, erasers in funny shapes, a ruler and a protractor (look it up- and don’t ask me why we needed it, but we all had one). These were stored inside our wooden desks with lift up covers and generations of initials and secret messages carved so deep you had to use a notebook under your paper to be able to write on them.

In pre-computer days, looking up information was a long, labored process. If your family could afford it, you had a full encyclopedia set that was sold door to door. But if you were poor, you might only have volumes A through C because you tried to collect them when they were on sale and ran out of money. Any subject starting with D-Z required me to walk to Salem Library, causing me to write a lot of papers about subjects like the Atmosphere, the Baroque period and the history of Cats in Culture.

The revelation that cursive writing is a useless skill that will no longer be taught in schools came about 40 years too late for me, with penmanship being my most hated subject. I would spend hours trying to morph my unique style (translation= unreadable) into the generic examples, making sure my lower case letters fell below the red dotted line on the handwriting grids. I’ve never written anything in cursive since then, perhaps in protest over being graded so harshly for something so distinctly individual.  

Before calculators, we learned a finger tapping method that was one step above an abacus. In math class, we’d be called up one by one to do the multiplication tables, which involved laying both hands face down on the desk while the teacher tapped a ruler rhythmically in between them to the beat of us reciting “8, 16, 24, 32….”, with each incorrect answer causing the ruler to stray and swat the back of our hand.

Public humiliation was doled out freely as punishment, including one gross injustice that resulted in my having to write “I will not be an Indian giver” 100 times on the chalkboard, wrong on so many counts I wouldn’t know where to begin. Even worse, I was too short to reach the top of the blackboard so I had to keep getting on and off a little ladder as the class snickered behind me. Combine this with my unreadable handwriting and the teacher finally got sick of me somewhere around number 54 and told me to just go home because he was late for dinner.

These memories flood my thoughts as I wait in the check out at Target, surrounded by back to school families. As the cashier rings in my household purchases, he says “back to college, huh?” I correct him by saying “No, I don’t have kids”. “I meant you” he says with a wink.

Which instantly make me feel young again, reminding me that no matter how old you are, there is always someone else who thinks you are just a ‘kid’.

Summer in Salem

Biking around Salem on a recent evening, I rode past some of my old summer haunts, scaring up memories of a younger me riding this same route over 40 years earlier.

My youthful summers centered around swimming, and my standard uniform was a ruffled bikini accompanied by old white sneakers that would make unflattering farting type noises as they squished out the water they were never intended to be used in. My Nana’s back yard opened to Collins Cove beach, where a huge pipe ran from one side of the harbor to the other, submerged at high tide; trapping shallow water to one side of it at low tide. I’d watch the rising water until waves lapped the edge of the pipe then try to run to the other side before it was engulfed, spending the rest of the day disrupting the periwinkles that were stuck to it.

Another popular hangout was the Forest River Pool, which was filled with salt water back then. Murky and cold, we’d swim until our teeth chattered, then jump out to stuff a peanut butter and jelly sandwich down our throats. We would then be warned to wait at least 15 minutes before we went back in or we’d get a side stitch and drown, as we’d impatiently dangle our feet on the edge of the pool screaming “IS IT TIME YET?” every 30 seconds.

Then there was the Salem Willows Casino, aptly named as we’d blow our weekly allowance on skee ball trying to win a bigger and better prize, but instead come home broke with only a green plastic soldier and a Hobb’s popcorn stomach ache to show for it.  

But it was the rides perched on the grassy knoll near the entrance that fueled my emerging adrenaline addiction. There was an airplane ride, a roller coaster and a tilt a whirl. I was such a regular the conductor would sometimes let me ride longer on the slow days, no doubt amused by the puny girl trying to leverage her weight to spin the cart as fast as possible.

Before the Peabody Essex Museum consumed downtown Salem, it was a humble building where I’d spend afternoons mesmerized by the stuffed animals indigenous to the area, and in awe of the ship figureheads that lined the walls of the great halls. I saw the wax witch story at the Salem Witch Museum so many times I knew the script better than most men know The Godfather, and there were no more secrets the House of Seven Gables could keep from me, as I knew them all.

There were also special events, like the carnival that took place at Riley Plaza. Watching them arrive and set up was an event in itself, and although I never had much money to spend on rides, it was a treat to experience the flashing lights, arcade game sounds and cotton candy scent in the middle of the city.

The Heritage Days fireworks display took place at “the overpass” where the Salem Train Station is now located. Being 3 foot nothing, the only way I could see them was if my father sat me on his shoulders where I would hold on tight to his forehead, nearly poking out his eyes in the process, reveling not only in the sparkly show, but also in the fact that I was out way past my bedtime.

Caught up in my ride down memory lane, I realize it is once again past my bedtime as I turn my bike towards home, the end of another summer day in Salem.

The Stuff We Keep

Since the start of 2012, I’ve been on the move- literally, figuratively and every other way you can imagine.

After almost 22 years of working at One Herald Square, the Boston Herald recently completed a move from an entire city block to office space in the Seaport District of Boston.  The process of planning, preparing, packing and purging took over half a year.  It was intense, complicated and sometimes emotional. What struck me most about the move was how attached people became to “stuff”- everything from chairs to pencil holders to tape dispensers.  There is one particularly disturbing scene involving an old keyboard pad bleeding out stuffing that my co-worker insisted she could sew that will forever haunt me.  

Trying to convince our staff to let go of the old and embrace the new was an intense and sometimes draining experience.  So how did I celebrate finally completing this process?

I decided to move my home as well.

So I began the process all over again, but this time with my stuff. And there was a lot of stuff.

There was high school stuff and college stuff. There was dog stuff- even though I haven’t owned a dog in over 15 years- and there were old sneakers, lots of old sneakers. There were race shirts and my brother’s coaching jackets, with his name embroidered. There were Halloween costumes, and clothing so old it looked like it could be a Halloween costume.  There were more freebies that I picked up at conferences than you could shake a stick at (whatever that means), including at least 20 tubes of lip balm with various logos on them.  There was expired medicine to cure just about every ailment, and more gift bags than I could remember getting gifts in.

As I sorted through what I had felt compelled to save for most of my life, mainly because I had the room to do so, the memories came back to me. There was my final exam from college where the notoriously difficult professor had given me an A++ and wrote a wonderful, personal message saying I had beautiful soul to go along with it. There was a sock puppet my high school friend Karen designed to look like me and an old pep rally script where I had replaced The Wizard of Oz sound track lyrics with various Go Salem Witches wording.

Each object had a memory or emotion behind it, that made the decision of “keep or save” sometimes heart wrenching.  But even more difficult were the memories of the house itself.

It was my brother’s house, the place where I cried in the closet as I was painting because I wasn’t sure it was the right move for me and didn’t want him to see I was upset. It was the place where I got to know my brother Stephen as a grown up, not as my little brother. It was the house where I recovered from cancer surgery, and where I found out Stephen had been killed by a drunk driver. It was the house I lived in alone, and then shared with my fiancé. 
For 13 years, I had laughed, grieved and healed in my home, and those memories are so much more important than what you can pack into a box.  And they are far easier to move because they will remain in storage in my heart for eternity.

So what “stuff” made the cut and what didn’t? And does it really matter?

Because at the end of the day, it’s just “stuff” after all.

Learning to Ride a Bike....Again

Recently, I started riding my bike again. What was intended as cross training to supplement my running quickly turned into a trip down memory lane, as I realized how much biking has changed over the years. 

Back in the day, I rode a snazzy pink number with a huge white banana seat and streamers flowing off the handlebars. I sat straight up, supported by a high backrest better suited for a Harley, as my helmet-less head bopped along to the rhythmic sound of the clicker attached to my back tire, which announced to the neighborhood that I was out on a roll.

We barely used kickstands, as the parking method of choice was ‘ditch and run’, and our bikes easily withstood the punishment we put them through. Flats were rare as the tires were so fat they look like they were taken off a monster truck and we could ride over nails and glass with no worries. In fact, we’d often leave the imbedded object stuck in the tire for the extra click it delivered with each rotation.

There was no fear of theft, as everyone’s bike was easily identifiable thanks to thoughtful customization like baskets on the front, bright plastic piping on the spokes and customized license plates- also useful for identifying who had beaten you to the penny candy store.

Learning to ride was as simple as balancing without training wheels, as there were no gears or gimmicks; just pedal to ride, back pedal to brake. But even these basic skills would be perfected for hours on the basketball court where we would practice riding with no hands, popping a wheelie, riding while standing on your seat, balancing your friend on the handlebars, and seeing who could create the longest skid mark.

Parents didn’t plan their summer days around giving kids rides, as everything was biking distance. Each morning, I’d jump on my banana bike and ride my free flowing locks to the playground to meet the camp counselor who had all sorts of activities waiting for me, including creating such parental presents as gimp comb holders for dad and pot holders made out of fabric loops for mom. Often I’d wear my bathing suit in case I decided to take a plunge at Collins Cove or Dead Horse Beach, after which I’d jump back on my bike and blow dry myself as I cruised to my next stop.

But bike riding today is not nearly as carefree as it used to be.

Getting ready to ride can take longer than the ride itself, as I suit up with special shoes that fit the special lock-in pedals, padded bike shorts, gel gloves and a government approved safety helmet, appearing ready to compete in the Tour de Salem.

I glide along silently, my torso stretched out almost flat, precariously perched on a tiny seat that barely fits my butt cheeks, trying to figure out why I need 21 gears and two sets of brakes when I was perfectly happy with none. My fragile tires worry me, as I ride equipped with a flat tire changing kit, portable tire pump and cell phone.

Stopping to do an errand is a project, as ditch and run is not an option with a bike that cost you a month’s salary. So you not only need to find a bike rack for secure parking, you also need to remove your quick release front tire and lock it to the frame and back tire using a wire cutter resistant lock that weighs more than the bike itself.

But for all that has changed, some things remain the same. Cruising along, I remember how much of the city you can take in during a ride, exploring neighborhoods you’d never find by car or foot. And there is a peacefulness to biking that is very different from the punishing pounding of running.

But these pleasant thoughts are cut short when I spy a patch of thick mud in front of me and instinctively back pedal to brake as my front tire gets locked up in the gunk, wobbles sideways and ditches unexpectedly. The adult in me does a quick assessment of injury and comes up with only a skinned elbow and scraped knee, while the kid in me whispers underneath my government approved bicycle safety helmet “Awesome ditch…I’ve still got it!”