Grandpas' Being Followed By a "boon" Shadow...

"Booooon!", the tiny figure cradled in my lap crooned. "Dain Deah!" he added. To a consonant challenged thirteen month old, this is exactly how the magical words "moon" and "reindeer" are pronounced.

Earlier in the day, my grandson and I had taken a bath in our big jacuzzi bathtub - grandpa dressed in his swimming trunks, Grant in the suit that nature gave to him. While grandma laughed and enjoyed the sight of us two boys splashing around, playing with rubber duckies and frogs, I savored the moment as I always do. Together, Eileen and I got his little, squirming appendages clean and shiny. His beautiful blond hair was soaped then rinsed of it's Johnsons Baby shampoo.

Later on towards evening, I changed his mush filled diaper (being very careful to clean all the little boy crevices), then dressed Grant in his soft brown pajamas with the little basketballs on them. I could tell he was winding down from a long day of sled rides, playing Match Box cars and strewing various toys with reckless abandon all around the surface of our living room.

"Wanna go jumpin on the bed before nite-nite?", I inquired. He loves to bounce around on grandpa and grandma's good old "Sleep Number". Grant toddled over to the bedroom door.

I could tell his energy level was getting low however so instead of flinging him through the air to land on a pillow like a miniature superman, I turned off the lights and we sat down on the edge of the bed to look out at the night landscape. His hair still smelled sweetly of baby shampoo. His warm body filled my lap.

In Grant's mind, a partially hidden street light looks exactly like the moon. The two brightly illuminated, left over Christmas reindeer we keep on the lawn just for his visits thrill him to no end. For fifteen minutes I will never forget, we gazed in wonder at the imaginary planets, the head lights of trucks coming in from ice-fishing on the lake and yes, the "Dain Deah".

Grant has returned to his mommy and daddy's home but sometime, as we stride across the wooden floors of our home, grandma or grandpa will undoubtedly step barefoot on a left over, sharp metal car or plastic building block. And when we do, we will sorely miss the dear little boy who marvels at the moon.

GRANDMA'S NEW DIET

My lovely wife was really excited: "I've lost five pounds!" she exclaimed, "I think its from babysitting Grant!". Naturally, this declaration got grandpa's creative juices flowing. Everybody and their mother is coming out with some new-fangled method for dropping weight and toning up. Why not me?



Achieving Maximum Cardiovascular Results Through Chasing An Eight Month Old:

Elderly grandparents will need to begin doing this exercise extremely slowly. Using mainly your semi-atrophied thigh muscles, start by hunching over and having the child firmly grasp your index fingers with their tiny dried oatmeal/snot encrusted palms. As the young one careens off like a small drunken sailor through his parents home, be careful not to let his soft little cranium bounce off the innumerable sharp surfaces of objects which seem to be everywhere. Remember: Breath deeply, start slowly - you both need to make it through this.

After a few weeks of chasing and in spite of back muscles which seem to be encased in cement, grandparents should start to feel, well...tired. Actually, since your lung capacity will be greatly enhanced you will now see some results as you grunt, stoop over and weigh yourself ( you will be grunting due to the fact that your grandchild will be firmly clenched in your toned-up arms because you'll undoubtedly want to brag to your friends about how big the little bugger is getting). Lord knows, grandma can't get the kid to sit still long enough to step on the scales himself.

Since this book is still only in the developmental stages (just like young Grant), future chapters will be offered eventually, maybe after grandpa's nap. Meanwhile, grandma and I will continue laughing about different subjects such as taking inches off your thighs by pushing him around and around the living room floor as he sits laughing delightedly in a waist high cardboard box. Make sure you alternate legs however or else you will have one thigh looking like a drumstick and one that resembles a guided missile.

Before they develop those sharp, tiny chompers, grandchildren can also be extremely useful as skin softners. Begin this procedure by holding them up to your wrinkly facial features and oftentimes they will begin salivating and sucking on grandma's lotiony-smooth chinny, chin, chin. It can be very humorous to see the expression on their dear, dear faces when they accidentally latch on to grandpa's whisker-stub bled jaw. The benefits of laughter combined with massive amounts of love can be beneficial to everyone involved.

And even if grandpa never becomes a filthy rich, fabulously wealthy best selling author of instructional weight loss books, he hopes he will always have his beloved grandson(and future grand kids)as subjects. Just thinking about soon to be bicycle rides, kindergarten busses and yes, first dates to write about is enough to make him smile...and want to take his nap.

Nite, nite!!

THE DAY BEFORE...9/11

Grandson Grant turned exactly eight months old on September 10th and I wonder what I will tell him someday about the horror that befell this country almost ten years ago.

When I was a child, the only things I had to be afraid of were neighborhood bullies, coming home after curfew or getting busted for occasionally lifting a candy bar or pack of smokes from the local neighborhood grocery store (Grant may or may not learn of this). Other than those worries, we played outside from dawn til dusk, rode our bicycles miles to a distant junior high school that had an indoor swimming pool and god forbid...hitch-hiked when we were absolutely beyond the aerobic capacity of teenagers who smoked (see previous reference to shoplifting).

Yesterday,as Grant clutched my index fingers, toddling barefoot like a tiny drunken soldier through the soft green grass in our backyard, it was easy for this aging grandfather to wonder what is in store for his grandson. Will there someday be a tragedy that will be seared into his consciousness as vividly as his grandfather's memories of September 11Th, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr.? Does the fear of a next terror attack never end? Lord...for his innocent little sake, I hope the world one day comes to its senses again.

Tomorrow I will hoist Grant's khaki covered/diaper bottomed butt atop of my still sturdy shoulders and stroll down the paths of his pine-studded back yard. I will place his tiny fingers against the textures of tree bark, evergreen needles and wildflowers, knowing that while he is yet so innocent he will never have to worry about the bad stuff in this world.

And when he someday asks about all of these things, I hope grandpa will be able to explain them or maybe...just maybe...people will all have learned to forgive rather than to retaliate by then.

This is my prayer for September 11Th, 2011.

When Babies Have Babies...

I was out watering the grass and attempting to plant some tomatoes when my "little" boy stopped by on the way down to his buddies house for an afternoon/night of partying. Along with his cooler, dog and snacking supplies, he toted the most important cargo of all...his baby son, Grant.

Has it really been a shade over 36 years since I lugged his once tiny butt to get-togethers with my own friends? After the birth of his baby when he was bemoaning the lack of personal time he now faced, I told him that some of the best times I ever had were when my friends stopped by with their own young children. We would get a six-pack of beer, plug in the Atari game (if you know what Atari is - you're out of date too) and watch our children amuse each other. As soon as he got big enough, I buckled him into the bike seat on the back of daddy's bike and he went everywhere with me.

One of the things I love the best about having a grandson is the chance to really, really appreciate all over again the sweet innocence of him. There is absolutely nothing as enjoyable as having that warm, trusting little body falling asleep in the crook of my arm after he has feasted on his bottle. It makes my heart ache with joy when he "wrestles" with Grandpa, shrieking and chirping like a tiny birdie when I get right in his soft, milky-smelling neck and growl like an elderly bear.

It has been so many years since I was able to do these things with my own "baby" that I had forgotten what it felt like to hold him. If I tried this now, there would surely be a hernia of some type in my future. All in all, it makes me look at him with a fuller sense of love because I know in my heart now, his own beautiful baby boy will make him an even better...man.

Thanks, son.

Love, Dad.

Inar Perrara...

I didn't notice the single shadowy graveplot at first. Mostly because I was thoroughly enjoying a late afternoon jog down a gravelled country road after a five hour car ride up from Sault Ste Marie. This was the second of what would be four, excellent adventure runs amidst our seven day - seventeen hundred mile exploration around the outer perimeter of stunning lake Superior.

Plodding around a corner of the road I spied dozens of faded white wooden crosses planted in the ground of an ancient hillside cemetary on my right. Slowing to a walk, I made my way in respectful silence through the crosses and simple stone markers bearing loving testimony to the lives of those who were buried beneath my shoes. Who were these people? What would life have been like fifty, seventy-five or even a hundred years ago in this remote area of Ontario?

After offering a silent prayer that fate had been kind to my deceased companions, I stepped back onto the gravel and continued my journey. It was then that I noticed the small single stone cross sitting alone and forlorn along the roadside to my left, almost as if the grave's resident needed her own special place to dwell on a life that turned out to have ended much too soon. The cross bore a faded metal plaque that said simply; "Inar Perrera, Died - Sept,15 1943. Age - 39". It was at this point that the beginnings of a song entered my head. I finished it last week.

INAR PERRERA

The small stone cross casts it's tiny shadow
Upon the gravesite it rises above,
While in the distance a waterfall rumbles
To the lake down far below...

And as I run on I wonder,
How did you get here beside this road?
All the white wooden crosses that beckon to you
From the green grass on the mountainside,
Who were you? How did you die?
Would I have loved you when you were alive?

Inar Perrara is buried here
And I can't get her out of my mind-
Was she a blonde haired beauty with deep blue eyes,
Who was gone too soon...at thirty nine?

The afternoon sun shines in my eyes
As I make my way back to my room,
Past darkened forests that call out her name-
Making me feel not alone.
For her name comes echoing through the past,
Across the Canadian countryside...
Who were you? How did you die?
Would I have loved you when you were alive?

Inar Perrera is buried here
And I can't get her out of my mind-
Was she a blonde haired beauty with deep blue eyes
Who was gone too soon...at thirty nine?
Inar Perrera, I call your name,
Inar Perrera has gone away-
Inar Perrara will never know...
Gone too soon, at thirty nine.

With a name like "Inar" I just assumed that my graveyard companion had been a woman in her lifetime and let my imagination wander where it wanted. If any of you finds evidence to the contrary about Inar's gender, please...keep it to yourself. Let an old man have his harmless fantasies because after all, some future cemetary visitor may type something creative about our lives. Perhaps we will look down from heaven on them...and smile.

FROM FATHER TO SON

The young boy watched closely.
What a thing of beauty it was to see his father cradling the black, sixteen pound bowling ball, gracefully stepping forward-one, two, three, four, and ending with a final smooth left foot slide. Dad released the ball and the pins at the end of the long wooden alley exploded.

"Thats the way you do it Billy! Snap your right hand up like you're holding a suitcase or shaking someone's hand" he instructed, "And don't forget to hit that second arrow!"

Dad always made sports look so easy. Had it really been almost fifty years since that first bowling lesson?

I gently place the dog-eared scrapbook on my lap and open it ever so carefully. One must be cautious when examining precious memories, especially the ones my grandmother collected for her son. They fall apart easily.

It isn't long before the headlines capture my attention:
"JONES AND PLOPAN LEAD IN VICTORY!"
"RED RAIDERS SWAMP FOE BY 19-0 SCORE!"
"ROGER JONES IS ONLY ECORSE BOY TO WIN TWO SETS!"
It amazes me still that those faded newspaper cutouts refer to a)Basketball b)Football c)Tennis and somewhere in that scrapbook there are at least a few articles about Dad's boxing exploits. He was just plain good at everything he tried as far as sports (golfing, baseball and "fishing" included). Maintaining a steady job is a subject for another time but eventually he excelled at that too.

My friend Tony and I stand in the backcourt opposite my father who is in the process of rising up towards the sky and deftly smashing a tennis ball across a vinyl trimmed net. For a change, the ball does not appear to be moving anywhere near as fast as it usually does. I eagerly charge forward to smash it back.

Incredibly, the slow moving serve arcs softly over the net, spins upward perhaps a foot and then dribbles back to the cement. My racket whooshes forward just above the apex of the balls bounce. My Dad is chuckling.

"Dad!!! No Fair!!!" I whine in my rage filled thirteen year-old voice, "You said you wouldn't put spin on it!!!"
Not too much later, Dad hits a slicing drop shot which causes Tony to severely twist his ankle trying to return it. The match is over for this particular day and in the end we were all laughing about Dad's trickery. Besides, we knew that some of what he had taught us (the hard way) would come in handy in matches against our buddies eventually.

Not all of the scrapbooks contents deal with stellar athletic endeavors; there is a faded musical program noting a piece my father is playing (or singing); an article referring to his induction into the Marine Corp and more than a few souvenir dance booklets. Dancing was a skill that helped him win the heart and feet of my mother. He was awesome at "hoofing" it too...just ask my wife, who had several opportunities to swing dance with him before his untimely passing.

Early last month, my cousin Phil (the family historian) had asked if any family members wished to add anything about Dad, who left this world in September of 1976. We were now celebrating the occasion of his birth in June of 1923.

In addition to what I've already written, I wish to say this Phil: Out of all the "Uncles", my Dad was certainly the most well-rounded (if not the best) athlete of the entire bunch. I only wish that he lived a lot longer and taken better care of himself. There were so many stories I've missed about legendary family golf, horseshoe and other competitions I would love to have heard and Dad? Well, he never was one to brag about his own exploits. Thank god his mom kept track of some of them.

The sturdy young man with long brown hair squats and positions himself in the stance of a baseball catcher. The pitcher is his nearly fifty year old father who begins a slow windmill-like windup as he prepares to deliver the ball. This is how they played it in the Marines...fast pitch, underhand.

In the span of perhaps a second, the softball whizzes like an out of control mini-Sputnik, wobbling and dipping toward the catchers unprotected face. Instinctively, he raises his mitt.

Having saved himself a broken nose or worse, the young man removes his glove and massages his swollen, reddening fingers.
"I think thats all I want to play for today, Dad", he says. "I guess fast-pitch isn't for sissies."

That may have been the last opportunity I had to play sports with my father. We were on a bowling league (sponsored by the "Brass Collar Bar") for a couple of years. Before or after that game of catch? I can't really remember.

I do know that he was proud of me in spite of my own limited athletic skills. He took great joy in the fact that I won the high game of the season in that league and yes, most of it was due to his long ago bowling instructions.

"Happy Birthday" and thanks again Dad. I'll be visiting the scrapbook soon and marvelling anew at what an enormously talented athlete and father you were. I never got the chance to tell you in person but I have it now...I love you.

Bill.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME...

On May 17th of this year, the daughter of two dear friends gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. The infant has long, perfectly-formed fingers that curl up tightly into tiny clenching then un-clenching fists which will latch firmly onto an adults hand if offered. I am left to wonder how many years it will be until that lovingly offered grasp is no longer needed.

Now that our son and his wife are expecting their first child in January, the words to a couple of songs I had written are locked firmly in my noggin and they need to be released before too much cranial pressure builds up. The first tune is for the friends baby with the beautiful, beautiful name. The second song was written for a lovely wedding which took place nearly ten years ago...a wedding that will ultimately produce our first grandchild early in the new year.

LULLABY AVA ROSE

Lullaby Ava Rose
A full moon shines on the lake
And the waves gleam silver in the light,
Close your eyes, close your eyes
As you listen to the sounds
Of wild things who sing in the night.

A lonesome loon calls, For he misses his mate
As she sleeps in her nest in the reeds,
Oh he'll bring back a dinner
Of fishies and frogs
Lullaby Ava Rose, Lullaby...

Gently rock on the water, Oh the boats they do call
And green grass caresses the sand-
Lullaby Ava Rose, Lullaby Ava Rose
God holds you, in the palm of his hand-

And the wind softly whispers, The sound of your name
As we rock in the old wooden chair,
Close your eyes, close your eyes
Time to sleep little one...
Lullaby Ava Rose, Lullaby,
Close your eyes, close your eyes
Time to sleep little one...
Lullaby Ava Rose, Lullaby.

And if I open up my soul, I can still feel the trust, softness and innocence of our own two children cuddled up in my lap, loving nothing better than the beginning of a good story book.

I CAN'T IMAGINE...

Was it so long ago, I read stories to you
In my soft-backed chair?
And was it yesterday, I watched you play "Tag"
On a summer's eve?
You've grown so
I don't know...
Can't imagine where the years have gone,
The years have gone.

A baby girl, with your big brown eyes
Your daddy loves you so,
Across the miles, momma calls to you
"Baby come back home!"
Can't now Mom,
I'm grown now
And I've found a love forever of my own.

Spread your wings, it's time to fly away,
We bless your lives on this, your wedding day
In our hearts you're always here,
Through the good times
And the tears-
Two one time "kids"
Now a family of their own

Mmm, a rockin chair
On the big front porch,
A glass of lemonade-
Grandma and I, cast our memories back
Into the evening shade,
It's gone so fast, I don't know...
Someday you'll wonder where
The years have gone,
The years have gone.

Grandma and I just got off the phone with the new parents to be. The "kids" got to hear the baby's heart beat and see a picture of what a child looks like at the tender age of ten-weeks so they are totally excited. No one is as excited as my lovely wife however. She has huge plans for he/she.

Grandpa prays for a healthy delivery, a cool baby name so he can write more songs and finally that time slows down just a bit because the years truly have gone by in the blink of an eye. There, my head is empty now (more so than usual). Blog to ya later and thanks again for reading!