Life's Close Calls

As invariably happens while driving down the Eisenhower Highway in Chicago, a car turned into my lane unexpectedly last Saturday, causing me to swerve to my left, honk my horn and shout out a few obscenities. My daughter, her boyfriend and I could easily have become statistics. 

After our close call, I posed the question, “How is it that natural selection hasn’t already taken care of this guy?”

“That’s just it,” answered my daughter. “He would have survived but we would have died.”

Perhaps she’s right that the morons among us will end up living the longest, but if I’m honest with myself, I could easily be considered Exhibit A if we were to test this hypothesis. If I carefully consider the number of close calls I’ve survived in my life, I probably should have died a dozen times over by now. That I’m still standing is a miracle, and as I look around my fellow flawed humans, it’s a wonder that any of us survive to see middle-age, much less our 80s or 90s or beyond.

Even overlooking the shameful acts of my youth when stupidity reigned, I can count off loads of times when luck kept my heart beating. Just seven years ago, the brake fluid leaked out of my Honda Civic while I was approaching the busiest intersection in all of Illinois (or so I’m told – Highway 83 and North Avenue), and when I pumped the brakes to no avail, I accelerated through the intersection unscathed. That should not have happened. When I tumbled down a ski slope in Crested Butte in 1990, I broke a vertebra in my neck, but didn’t sever my spine. When I took a left turn last year despite my vision being significantly blocked by a parked bus, I avoided the car that suddenly appeared from behind the bus by inches.

Luck. All luck.

And two Saturdays ago, my wife stood on top of a chair in our first-floor bathroom, only to lose her footing, fall sideways onto the toilet and break six ribs. Painful and scary, for sure, but we consider the fall to be the best worst-case scenario, because just 12 inches to her left could have meant cracking her skull or breaking her neck on the pedestal sink. We’ll take the six broken ribs, thank you very much.

But how are any of us still standing? Paul Simon once sang, “The planet groans every time it registers another birth,” and I find it mind-boggling that humanity has managed to amass 8.1 billion specimens - that instead of groaning the Earth doesn’t chuckle, “Here comes another one, but no matter, he’ll be dead in short order.”

Perhaps the planet would be better off if the more moronic among us weren’t so lucky. But I’m not about to raise my hand to go first.

Is Your Family Brunch-Close?

At a bed and breakfast in Asheville a few weeks ago my wife and I met a couple from Maryland, and over breakfast one morning we exchanged a CliffsNotes version of our lives: place of birth, occupation, residence, family members and the like. After learning that the couple’s daughter lived in New York, I said, “That’s not too bad. Fairly close to Maryland.”

“Yes,” answered the mother. “But she’s not brunch-close. People tell me how lucky I am that she’s not in California or some other state far away, but it’s not like we can get together for brunch on Sundays.”

Brunch-close. Precisely. That’s what I want. Instead, I have a daughter who lives five hours away, a son who lives six hours away, and another daughter who lives…well, a four-hour plane ride away (I’ve never gotten the gumption to drive to Los Angeles). The mother from Maryland’s point is well-taken; even five hours away is four hours too far to get together for a Sunday brunch.

I’ve lamented before that I raised three kids only to have them move away. Perhaps if my wife and I had refused to pay for out-of-state universities we’d have had a fighting chance, but we did well enough financially that we basically gave our children a green light to drift away, an irony that isn’t lost on me; I’d gladly reduce our 401k balance by half if it meant having our three children live nearby. Guess we mucked that one up!

The geographical distance between family members has other ramifications: it means we vacation less. When my wife and I lived on the east coast, we’d travel to Milwaukee, Chicago and Dallas regularly to see family, and with only two weeks of vacation allowed per year by our employers, that’s pretty much all we could do aside from a weekend camping trip. Now that our children have grown and moved far away, most of our vacation time is spent visiting our children in their respective locations.

Last week a friend of mine suggested that we meet some friends in Portugal next summer – a lovely idea. But we’re planning on visiting family in January (New York), March (Arizona) and April (Ohio), watching our son graduate from college in May (Ohio) and attending my daughter’s wedding in October (California), undoubtedly interspersed with other trips to see our other daughter (Kentucky). So sure, we can go to Portugal next summer, but it probably means we see our children less, a lousy trade-off to have to make.

I know. Such are the problems of a healthy, married, middle-aged white guy with solid financials. In the words of Joe Walsh from his classic song, “Life’s Been Good”:

I can’t complain but sometimes I still do

Yep. Nothing’s going to stop me until my kids live close.

The Thrill of Fear

It’s why we tell ghost stories. It’s why we adorn our homes and yards with creepy decorations around Halloween. It’s why we continue to watch spine-tingling scenes in a movie even when we want to hide under a blanket. There’s something thrilling about being afraid. That is, when the stakes are low enough. These days, there are plenty of real things to be afraid of, and I fear that as a result kids today are being denied the thrill that comes from being modestly mischievous.

When I was a burgeoning teenager, there were two houses my friends and I toilet-papered with regularity, both occupied by a classmate named Suzanne. We had nothing against either Suzanne. We weren’t “into” either of them. But their yards had trees, lots and lots of big, glorious trees, practically begging to be layered in fluffy cotton sheets, and we willfully answered the call.

Our preparatory trips to Kmart attracted stares from patrons and cashiers, as my friends and I pooled enough of our money together to purchase 40 or 50 rolls of toilet paper. When I consider the cost of a pack Charmin today, I wonder if this would be a feasible pursuit in 2023, but in 1981, a bunch of 13-year-olds with meager means could buy a lot of toilet paper.

We’d hang out at our buddy John’s house until late at night, spinning records and playing ping-pong. No beers. No smoking. It was pretty innocent stuff. But around 2AM we’d head outside donning dark clothing and prowl across the wonderfully unfenced backyards of Brookfield, Wisconsin, stealthily making our way a half a mile or so to our target house, where we’d launch roll after roll of toilet paper high over tree limbs, draping the maples and oaks in curtains of white while we kept watch for lights flickering on in the occupant’s home. Hearts racing, adrenaline gushing through our veins, we gleefully finished our task and raced back to our home base, careful to remain hidden from the occasional car in the early morning hours.

There came a time when TPing wasn’t enough – we needed to raise the stakes, and raise the stakes we did by adding a pièce de résistance after completing our toilet-papering: a blast of firecrackers and a glaring flare, its red light eerily glowing off the sheets of white toilet paper, elevating what could have been classified as an act of vandalism into a work of art.

If the flash of light and the explosion of gunpowder wasn’t enough to accelerate our hearts and strides, the car that went after us shortly thereafter surely was. Someone was pissed, most likely Suzanne’s father, and – especially in hindsight – understandably so. We had just jolted him from his peaceful slumber in the most abrupt way, causing a panic that I can only imagine.

Oh, but the thrill we felt! It was exhilarating and positively life-affirming. The gleeful charge of dipping our boring suburban toes into danger was unparalleled by anything else happening in our town.

I’ve raised three kids, all of whom are now adults, and I guarantee that none of them were allowed to experience the same sort of adventure that my friends and I had as youths. With yards surrounded by high privacy fences, with motion-detecting lights, video doorbells and security cameras recording our every move, and with the very real possibility that a homeowner could seek vengeance not with a call to the cops but with gunfire, I fear the days of innocent thrilling fun are over.

A shame for our youth, though I suppose not for we adults who are spared the heart-stopping panic of a brick of firecrackers exploding outside our windows. In that sense, we’ve had the best of both worlds.

A Neighborhood's Fraying Fabric

Recently scanning through my journal entries from years ago, I was taken with just how many people have passed through my life. Scores and scores of coworkers, bandmates, classmates, neighbors, friends – even family members – who were once cornerstones of my existence, I no longer keep in touch with, not because of any conflict or falling out, but through a gradual decline of contact until there was no contact at all, a sort of relational evanescence. John Lennon wrote of such a phenomenon in the song “In My Life” when he was all of 25 years old, but I’m now 55; the number of people I once knew but no longer know is staggering.  

Making me feel even more uneasy is the change I’ve witnessed recently in my own town and neighborhood. One might be quick to undermine the superficial relationships that we naturally cultivate over time, but their absence can lead to a real sense of loss. When walking my dog to a nearby park, I used to have a 50/50 chance of running into someone I “kinda sorta” knew: Chris who watched Cubs games in the garage, Colleen who could talk my ear off with her banter, Margaret who’s oldest was in my daughter’s grade. Now all of them have moved away, as have several other neighbors who once lived on my street and other friends from my town who’ve opted for greener pastures further out in suburbia, or further still in states like Florida or Colorado.

Gradually, the fabric of the neighborhood as I once knew it is fraying. People who weaved in and out of my life have left dangling threads, and I’m beginning to feel that the ties that bind me to my home of 23 years are becoming looser, leaving me uneasily untethered.

I’m a creature of habit. I like my house and the stuff in it. I like walking the dog and seeing the same people every morning. I like sitting on my front porch with my wife and having familiar neighbors stroll by and say hello. I’d like it even more if my kids lived a few blocks away, stopping by for a quick chat or a Sunday dinner, but this is not to be, as none of my three children even live in the same state as me, much less the same neighborhood.

Carol King once sang, “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?” Very few it seems. And I fear becoming the last old guy on the street who people point to when discussing the history of the neighborhood. “Ask Paul. He’s been here forever.”

One day I may have to make the choice of either relocating simply to move with the times or staying put and becoming lost in time. I wish there was a third option: everyone staying where they are.

That’s Just Like, Your Opinion, Man

The Dude abides in the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski, and he also has something to say about opinions. Namely, that opinions are just that – opinions – and not all of them are valid.

Case in point. Last week I had drinks with a few friends, and one of them who’s not really into music said, “Rap isn’t music.”  In my usual diplomatic and courteous way, I went on to lambaste this absurdity before he retorted with “It’s just my opinion.” But I took issue with this comeback for two reasons:

1) He made his statement as if were fact, not an opinion.
2) His opinion isn’t credible because it can be proven false.

On the first point, his utterance sure didn’t sound like an opinion to me. If he had instead said something like “To me, rap isn’t musical,” then that would have been a statement of opinion and entirely legitimate, if not sadly limited. But of course, we all make statements that are meant to be taken as opinions. In my podcast, I’ll often say something like “that guitar solo has no place in this song” or “this song goes on too long.” I don’t preface these statements with “It’s my opinion that…” or “I didn’t like that…” Instead, it’s tacitly implied that what I’m offering is an opinion – it’s one of the premises of the podcast. Now, perhaps I should have been more gracious to my friend and recognized the spirit with which he made his claim, but to me he had crossed a line and was speaking with a level of authority on the matter, as if determining what music is and what music isn’t fell under his jurisdiction.

Here’s what it is, according to one definition:

music (myoo͞′zĭk) noun

1.   The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.

Sounds like a definition that includes rap to me.

Which brings me to my second point: the “opinion” that rap isn’t music isn’t credible because it can be completely invalidated based on facts. Rap music does in fact arrange sounds in time to produce a composition, and furthermore, rap ­is a genre now well into its fifth decade that has sold countless records and CDs in music stores, is played on music stations and is viewed live at music venues. If not music, then what would you call it? Poetry with a beat? Come on!

If you’re going to make a controversial claim, you should be able to back it up in some way. Hell, even flat-earthers do this, albeit with ridiculous “facts,” but I’ve never heard a flat-earther say, “It’s just my opinion,” because saying the earth is flat isn’t a statement of opinion; it’s a statement of fact based on faulty data that can be proven false, just as my friend’s “opinion” that rap isn’t music is based on faulty data – probably having to do with a narrow definition that music must contain identifiable melodies that can be reproduced on a tonal instrument like a piano or trumpet. But saying rap isn’t music is like me saying Beethoven’s works aren’t music. I may not like his Eroica Symphony (except I do), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t music. 

And although you can form an opinion about the above, one conclusion can be made unequivocally: The Dude abides.