You craic me up

I just sent out an email to everyone that is in our email list asking for donations to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, as I am going to limp the Santa Barbara 1/2 marathon this October. I upped my walk yesterday to 3 miles, and training begins in earnest now. So if you didn't get an email from me, go here http://pages.teamintraining.org/los/sbhalf09/jfioressjf and make a donation that will help to save lives. Quit worrying about the mortgage and the job, and boost your karma with a donation to a good cause! If you prefer offline, send a check payable to Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to me at:
4392 Wavertree St.
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401


I now see there were more comments on the post from June 6; thanks for those kind words Pete, and Pat, I am going by Big 5 today to see about the boogie board they have on sale, is it big enough for a skinny fat guy. I could use the extra cramping that a cold water workout will bring, because leaping out of bed in the middle of the night and jumping around to quell a cramp just isn't enough. I want to cramp with drowning as a consequence! The goal is to get back in paddling shape.

I was thinking about fatherhood, thinking about my dad and your dad and what we learned from them, and what my kids learned from me, and I wrote this with artistic license:

Knucklebusting

My father taught me how to work with hand tools. He grew up in the depression, and he had all the tools any righteous and worthy man of the time would have – planes, levels, drills, saws, wrenches, hammers, vises, screwdrivers, soldering guns, socket sets, hex keys, and much more. He had inside tools and outside tools – rakes, hoes, edgers, spades, shovels and floats. He had all the paints, stains, wood dough, sandpaper and chisels needed for every job. He assigned me big jobs in the summers, painting the house, or digging a trench to a big hole for grey-water, or working on cars that did not want to run, ever again. I did those jobs and learned to not fear any job nor any mess, but instead to dive in and get dirty.

He also taught me how to swear like a Catholic when busting a knuckle. Most jobs that require hand tools also require a sacrifice of blood, often when the tool slips and the fingers are driven into a chunk of metal or cement. My dad was a salesman, a very smooth talker, but he felt compelled to swear in Italian, which he did not know, at these times. ‘Fongool a bona bouton,’ or just ‘Fongool,’ which I now know is a misconstruction of ‘Va a fare en culo,’ meaning ‘Go f*** yourself in the butt.’ I have no idea what the ‘bona bouton’ was intended as. Instead of ‘Jesus Christ’ he would say ‘Cheese and crackers,’ or smack his head and say ‘Oooh dee,’ which was ‘Oh God.’

My Mom lives in a condo now and misses the strange swearing. Deep in the building’s basement she has a storage area that is fenced in with chicken wire, and the remnants of my Dad’s hand tools are still there. Not the tools that had any usefulness, because my siblings and I have already put them back to use, but the obscure or past-by tools, like hand-drills and trouble lights, are still there. When I cleaned this area for my Mom, I left those tools there, to be treasures for somebody after me, for one of my son’s maybe.

I wrote this too, but my Dad didn't teach me this.


Smoke and Fire

So many times, the fathers die young,
their hearts failing to handle the stress of
not making more babies or
making too many babies,
or is it money not babies?
They carry this pent-up bile,
this magma, from listening to their bodies,
and they try to be good dads and husbands,
but so many can’t.
They try not to lust, not to care whom
is alpha male,
try to be good sports, try to play nice,
try to be faithful.
The poisons build up in there
and things start to heat up.
Like a big pile of used tires,
they catch fire spontaneously and
burn for years and cannot be stopped.
The doctors and shrinks try to fix them
but so often it’s no use, the systems are
overwhelmed, no longer relevant,
fright or flight not so important,
nothing to do with all that adrenaline
but suppress it or let it burn.

Woke up at 5 this morning, as usual. Much is the same, but I am back swinging an occasional golf club and my hip has calmed in its anger toward me. In 2 weeks we are leaving for England, Scotland and Ireland, so I am trying hard to suppress all my OCD habits with 5 of us in the house right now. Funny how the house is not so neat and clean as it was when I was the only one here all day. I have a chance to play St. Andrews ($300+) and a chance to see a day of the British Open at Turnberry ($100), but I am not committed to either. Och and begorra.