Just Santa

'Tis the season...for returning.  Today I had to drive 30 miles to return something I purchased that I shouldn't have. On the Friday before Christmas I had better things to do. I was in a hurry, and I was certainly not in the holiday spirit.

I was moving quickly on a country road when I spotted the red and white suit. Someone dressed up as Santa Claus was standing by the side of the pavement, waving at passing traffic. There was lots of traffic: behind me, before me, and coming in the opposite direction. Some drivers were waving back at him, or honking their horns, encouraging this masquerade. This was downright annoying! I had someplace to go, and some guy in a Santa suit was slowing traffic. No doubt "Santa" was employed to draw attention to some monster sale that was going on. There appeared to be a sign behind him, but I was focused on not getting into a fender bender, and I did not care what goods he was peddling. But the not-so-Scrooge in me had to admit that - at least out of the corner of my impatient eye - he looked like the real deal. Great beard, perfect belly, rosy cheeks, great hat. Whoever had hired him was probably getting their money's worth, selling lots of trees, toys, or whatever. But right then I needed to get where I wanted to go, and I was pleased when I was well past the Santa slowdown.

Once the unwanted object was successfully returned, I turned around and headed back to work. The traffic had abated, and I was feeling less humbuggy as I neared the Santa zone this time. Indeed, mine was the only car in sight and was therefore the object of his attention. I was curious to see what his deal was, so I slowed enough to read the sign behind him and see what kind of store he was standing in front of. It was not a store, but a rather regular looking single-family house, with no sale in sight. The sign read what his lips were mouthing: MERRY CHRISTMAS!  In those few fleeting seconds as I passed, his eyes sparkled and looked directly into mine. His smile was so genuine that I found myself smiling back. He really was the perfect Santa. He waved cheerfully as I left the Santa zone.

I thought about him a lot as I retraced the 30 miles. Was he just an ordinary person, standing in front of his home, selflessly trying to spread a little holiday cheer? Were there really still people like that in this world? Then I recalled a story on the evening news last week about a man who had made a holiday habit of walking around handing out $100 bills to total strangers. The car radio was offering its own tale of philanthropy, this one about someone paying off shoppers' department store layaway balances. By the time I got back to work, I was feeling the true spirit of the holiday season.

Santa has helpers everywhere, and they do good things for so many people. After all, Santa can't be everywhere at once. But I have a strong feeling that after all these years, I finally got to see Santa Claus. For today at least, he was standing by the side of a rural Connecticut highway, spreading joy to the world.

I hope you get to see Santa, too.

Catch and Release

I have been working on an essay about author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., but life has a way of making us change plans. As Vonnegut said more than once in Slaughterhouse-Five, "So it goes."

The nice lady holding the trout wants me to let you know about a nonprofit organization called "Casting For Recovery." Here's a link: http://castingforrecovery.org/. Founded 15 years ago in Vermont, they now have branches in several states, each following a program that gives breast cancer survivors an opportunity to learn the sport of fly fishing. From the "history" section of their website:

Casting For Recovery was founded on the principles that the natural world is a healing force and that cancer survivors deserve one weekend - free of charge and free of the stresses from medical treatment, home, or workplace - to experience something new and challenging while enjoying beautiful surroundings within an intimate, safe, and nurturing structure.

I first met the trout lady 33 years ago. Her name then was Dana Trebay, and she was the significant other of one of my wife's brothers. She did not hold that position for long, but she made a lasting impression on all of us with her unique sense of humor and lust for life. In 1979, several members of my wife's family were visiting us in Connecticut, and we decided to watch the Stephen King TV miniseries Salem's Lot. Dana did not like scary stuff and asked me if I had some music she could listen to. I put on James Taylor's JT album, fitted some headphones over her ears, and she went to a happy place while the rest of us cretins watched vampires run amuck for two hours. Dana and I formed a musical bond that evening that endured.

Not long after that she moved to the Pacific Northwest, returning to her native Long Island often to visit my wife's parents, who were like second parents to Dana. She had become one of the family, to the delight of all. As the years passed, we kept in touch with Christmas cards and occasional phone calls. She married a good guy named Brian Knesal and changed her name to Dana-Victoria Knesal.

In 1994, word came through the grapevine that Dana-Victoria had been diagnosed with breast cancer. The prognosis was not good. Prayers were requested and given by all. For her birthday, I decided to put some songs together on a cassette. I had a rather large record collection, and many songs with themes about the preciousness of time and life jumped out at me, including one I knew she loved, Secret O' Life from JT. I don't remember whether she responded by phone or mail, but she loved the cassette. I promised to make another for her next birthday. We both knew there might not be a next birthday, but she maintained a positive attitude and had great faith that God would see her through this fight against cancer. Dana-Victoria prevailed.

Each November I have enjoyed the annual ritual of creating a musical feast for my friend Dana-Victoria, and each year I have treated like it might be the last, so every song had to count. They had to be great songs, with great lyrics and nice melodies. When I made the occasional misfire, she let me know. But mostly she loved these yearly musical journeys. The cassettes eventually became compact discs, but the themes were fairly consistent: time, life, and love. I always sent along some notes about the artists and the songs, and she always sent me back a critique. She especially loved the upbeat, positive songs, and was especially impressed with the selections I sent by Maine singer/songwriter David Mallett.

14 musical journeys later, in 2008, Dana-Victoria was diagnosed with liver cancer and was told she had 6 months left. As with the previous diagnosis, Dana-Victoria chose to prove the doctors wrong. She was, after all, a cancer survivor. She and Brian had formed connections over the years with other survivors, and they knew the right places to go for the best treatment. Deeply religious, she credited her longevity as much to God as to the miracles of modern medicine. She turned that 6 month sentence into an additional 3 years, in which she lived every day to the fullest. She continued to be a source of inspiration to all of us, but especially to her fellow cancer survivors.

She was always trying new things, and traveling to new places. She loved the great outdoors. One summer evening I opened my email to find the photo above. I was shocked! I emailed back and asked how someone who loved all creatures great and small could enjoy ending the life of this beautiful fish. Her reply: "It's 'catch and release,' Silly!" She explained what Casting For Recovery was all about: reconnecting with life. They always let the fish go home unharmed. She said it was one of the greatest experiences of her life.

Shortly before her birthday this year, Dana-Victoria got the word that she needed a liver transplant. She knew that because of her health history she would not be high on the list for an donated organ. She kept a positive attitude, and continued to share it with others. I made her birthday CD as usual. On December 3, I posted photos on her Facebook page of her with my wife's parents. She happened to be online and asked me how they were doing. She offered medical advice for my father-in-law's sciatica. She told me she was working on her critique of my latest CD. She told me it was past my bedtime. As always, she sounded so full of life. Five days later she was gone.

I won't get to enjoy her critique this year, but I know what song was surely her favorite. Here's a link and one of the verses to David Mallett's Greenin' Up [copyright 1999 Cherry Lane Music Pub. Co., Inc., ASCAP]:

Well I work all day in the garden

This time of year there's just too much to do

But there's a fishin' pole in the corner

And it's strung up with a line as fine as dew

Tomorrow there'll be lots of time

To do the million things I know I should

But it's springtime in the country

And the pasture grass is greenin' up real good

It's greenin' up real good, lookin' mighty fine

Every little weed, every little vine

Where the open field gives way to the wood

It's greenin' up real good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8Px_5yR164

Dana-Victoria, I wish I could have been there at the end to place those headphones over your ears and chase away the scary stuff. I will miss our November musical ritual. I will miss you. Thank you for all the uplifting joy you brought to our family. We were lucky to "catch" you. It's this whole "release" part we are going to have trouble with. But as the old song says:  if you love someone, set them free.  So it goes.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/seattletimes/obituary.aspx?n=dana-victoria-knesal&pid=155030612

The nice lady holding the trout would like to have the last word:

Quit your whining!

Get out of that chair and embrace life!

God has given you this beautiful day!

Fringe and the Long Goodbye

I watch too much television. I know all the arguments for what a time waster TV is. Sitting in my comfy recliner with a bag of Cheetos and a Dr. Pepper, what do I have to show for my evening? One hour closer to the grave, with time I could have better spent writing a poem, reading a good book, learning to play the violin, painting my masterpiece, listening to great music, volunteering at the local soup kitchen. Or all of the above, if I ever learn the secret of multitasking.

But there are certain shows that draw me in; that are consistently good, and occasionally great. My current favorite is Fringe, now struggling through its fourth year, always hanging on the edge of cancellation (one of the perennial indicators of greatness in TV land). It's well written, well acted, multi-layered, quirky, dark, shocking, funny, cerebral, and occasionally profound. It offered up a generous helping of profound a couple of weeks ago, and I'll get to that in a moment.  But if you are unfamiliar with Fringe, and feel the urge to seek out the episode I'm about to spotlight, I recommend you visit this link:  http://www.fox.com/fringe/101/   It will bring you up to speed on how our heroes Olivia, Peter, and Walter made it - relatively intact - to season four.

In the November 11 episode "And Those We Left Behind," Peter is still trying to get Olivia (his significant other) and Walter (his father) to remember him. Peter has been in parallel universe limbo since he sacrificed himself to keep the universes from colliding (if you're not a science fiction fan, please indulge me for a moment?). His plan worked, in the sense that the Fringe teams in each universe (each has its own Olivia and Walter, as well as most of the other characters) are now working together to save their worlds, despite some serious trust issues. In our universe, Olivia has seen Peter in her dreams, and Walter has seen Peter's reflection in windows, although neither knows who he is. When Peter finally makes it back, he is believed to be a spy. Olivia has no memory of their years together, and Walter is furious that some imposter is claiming to be the son he lost in a drowning accident at age seven. Whether Peter will bring them around, or if he may have returned to the wrong universe (maybe there's a third?) and needs a ticket out will be resolved in future episodes. "And Those We Left Behind" shines a different kind of light on what Peter is going though, while offering an unflinching look at a very real memory killer.

Since Peter's return, there's trouble with time. Time "bubbles" are appearing, portals that lead to 2007. The Fringe team naturally gets the call, and they eventually track the source to a home in Brookline, Massachusetts. The occupants are Kate, a professor of theoretical physics, and her husband Raymond, an electrical engineer. Kate had been close to publishing a working theory of time travel until she had to retire in 2008 due to early onset Alzheimer's Disease. Unable to bear watching Kate slip away, Raymond has used the years to construct a "time chamber" based on Kate's unfinished work. His need is to return Kate to 2007 so she can finish the equation, but he had been unsuccessful until recently, when his chamber started functioning (apparently due to Peter's universe hopping), allowing him 47 precious minutes per day with his wife of four years ago. Those minutes are used so that Kate can finish her work, and Raymond can have her back permanently. We see Kate working on the equation, not quite sure why her husband is so insistent that she hurry. At the end of 47 minutes, she vanishes and reappears in another room. It is 2011 again, and Kate reverts to her advanced Alzheimer's stage. Just one more 47-minute window will allow Kate to finish the equation, and Raymond waits anxiously for the next day.

The Fringe scientists determine that the next bubble will occur in a busy traffic tunnel that was solid rock in 2007. Someone has to visit Kate and Raymond and make sure they don't use that chamber again. It's complicated, but Peter gets the assignment, confronts the couple (just as the 47 minutes have started) with the consequences of what they're doing, and Kate makes a difficult decision. Against Raymond's wishes, she destroys the record of her work and begs him to turn off the chamber. Their happiness is not worth the death of other people. Raymond tearfully complies, and the Kate of 2011 is back to stay.

I was searching for an appropriate quote about time from Einstein or Hawking, but this one seemed to fit:

The most precious resource we all have is time.  - Steve Jobs

Time travel has been a staple of science fiction forever (and maybe longer). Star Trek used it often, and Quantum Leap pretty much covered it. But this Fringe side story takes it to another level. In his latest novel, Stephen King's protagonist uses time travel in an attempt to alter history by preventing the assassination of President Kennedy. But I think most of us, if we had the chance, would use the opportunity the way Raymond did: to return to a time when those we love were all still with us in body and mind. Alzheimer's takes no prisoners. Famously, it took President Ronald Reagan from us, and it is currently cutting short the creative life of singer Glen Campbell, among many other notables. But all of our lives have been touched by it. If yours hasn't, it most assuredly will be. In our family, my mother-in-law Viola Lewis bravely faces each day. For her and her loved ones, it is - and will be - a long and painful goodbye. 

As Baby Boomers begin to reach the peak onset Alzheimer's age, surely a cure will have been found. If not, there won't be enough hospitals to hold us all. In the meantime, all we can do is hold our loved ones close, pray, and donate our dollars.

http://www.alz.org/

On Fringe, Peter's current plight is perhaps deliberately (only screenwriters Robert Chiappetta and Glen Whitman know for sure) a twist on what Alzheimer's patients experience: instead of forgetting everyone he knows, he must try and reawaken everyone's memories of him! It would be nice if those we love who suffer from this horrible disease could eventually pass through to an alternate universe where all their loved ones wait to be introduced to them again. Maybe Fringe will one day revisit the subject, and figure out a way for Raymond to get his Kate back. 

If you own a working time machine, I'd like to hear from you. While I'm waiting, there's an unfinished bag of Cheetos and a Dr. Pepper calling me. Did I mention that I watch too much television? Let's see what's on tonight...

Once Around the Bases

Blame it all on Mantle and Maris. What they did to fire the popularity of baseball in 1961 echoed through the years with American youth. Beyond Little League and other organized forms of the sport, thousands of unofficial neighborhood "teams" were created from the ground up by the very kids who played on them. Mine was the Whetstone Sluggers, named after a enchanting pond deep in the woods of central Maine, where the members of the Sluggers spent their summers swapping baseball cards and trying to figure out what girls were all about.

The 1961 New York Yankees, and especially the pursuit of Babe Ruth's home run record by that team's Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, kicked it up a notch for all of us.

By the summer of '62, we'd built our own ball field (quite a story in itself that I will explore at another time) about a half mile run from the Pond. We breathed baseball that summer. Any day that wasn't a rain out meant a game before lunch, and several games after. Naturally, we had our own home run race that year, which I won (again, a story for another time). But what I most carry with me about that time was how much we all loved the game and each others' company.

I wish I had photographs of that summer, but I didn't get my first camera until 1965. So what I offer you here is actually a reunion shot of part of that '62 team of mine. I don't recall that we ever had more than eight players on the field at one time (two teams of four), and that was on a good day. If we had less than four show up, we played "hit 'em where they ain't," a great game known by as many different names as there were kids that played it (and still do, I hope). The roster changed as families entered and exited the Pond community during the course of the summer. The main teammates I recall are Jim Harvey, Bob McLellan, Stuart Perkins, Alan Perkins, Clive West, our great cheerleader and occasional player Susan West, and our unofficial mentor and grand poobah Paul Just. (I apologize to anyone I left out due to foggy memory.)

The photo is a very obviously posed shot taken in Guilford, Maine, many miles away from the original Sluggers Field. Left-to-right: Stuart Perkins, James Harvey, Robert McLellan. Jim had obviously outgrown the rest of us by then (he was always the oldest player on the team), as his expression discloses. He is my oldest friend, and he recently retired to the good life in Maine. Bob is my cousin and friend, who relocated to Florida many years ago, and who still follows the New York Yankees with a passion (I graduated to the Boston Red Sox when Carl Yastrzemski arrived). Stuart I lost track of until Jim found him for me in the mid-'80s, during one of my visits to Maine. I recall he was working at the time (perhaps we caught him on his lunch break), so we just exchanged how-ya-bins and promised to catch up another time. After all, there's always tomorrow. Which I why I write this today.

I received a short note from Jim last week, the first in many years. Enclosed was the program from "A Service of Loving Remembrance for Stuart Wilson Perkins: May 1, 1951 - October 5, 2011." The service was held on October 29 at Guilford United Methodist Church in Guilford, Maine. Not far from where that photo was taken. I looked Stuart up on the Bangor Daily News obituary page. Obits always put a positive spin on things, but it looks like he had a full and rewarding life. He went to college, got married, had a son, and worked hard all his life. He gave back, first as a volunteer firefighter in Guilford, and later in Florida (where he moved in 1994) as a volunteer at Tidewell Hospice in Sarasota. I remember him as a good kid who loved baseball and his friends and family. He always showed up for work and play with a positive attitude and a smile on his face. His obituary states: "Stuart will be remembered as having the gift of never having known a stranger." That's Maine-speak for he was one heck of a good person who was loved by all. It fits him well that the kid I remember grew into a decent human being.

We only get to go around life's bases once, and Stuart Perkins rounded them in style. He could have been on my team anytime.  Maybe one day I can be his teammate again.

http://bangordailynews.com/2011/10/10/obituaries/stuart-w-perkins/