Ex-communique...

I spent a lot of time with my kids this weekend. Their mom, Annette, and I had a big go-'round in front of them, despite my attempts at sheltering them from this sort of bullshit. I try to always be civil and right-headed when issues arise with their mother, and I work very hard at shielding my kids form the crap, but even I, the smart, level-headed one, got a little out-of-hand with her.

Annette got some free tickets from her church to take my daughters to a Christian Girls' Concert/Conference for Friday night and all-day Saturday. She asked if she could stay here at the house, and I was more than gracious with my hospitality, as I have been on several occasions. She stayed down in the girls' room. On saturday morning, I made everyone breakfast, and ran to the grocers early to get them some snack stuff they could take along. Over coffee, Annette asked me if I had any "extra cash" I could give the girls so they could buy t-shirts, CDs and whatever while at the concert/conference that day. I thought SHE had them covered, since it was her thing for them, but she said she had no cash. So I forked over a $50 bill to the girls and told them to get some fun stuff from the concert. They were pretty wide-eyed and thankful, and started enumerating the CDs and t-shirts they wanted to purchase.

What I found out late that afternoon, AFTER they returned home, was that their mom confiscated the $50 before even leaving the house to drop them at the conference that morning, ordering them to NOT tell me. She spent the money on a toy for Sam and stuff for herself, shopping while the girls were at their concert with not a single dime to get any souvenieres or CDs of their favorite singing groups.

I was pissed.

I confronted Annette and said, "I really do NOT appreciate your taking the girls' concert money. I need my change." Without saying a word, she locked her jaw, looked away from me and dug the remaining $20 out of her pocket and said that the girls "owed her $30" anyway. I got pretty angry - but as i always do, remained fairly calm and reasoned, and told her that she had been dishonest with me and disingenuous with her daughters for requesting money from me under the guise of it being for them, then promptly taking it from them in secret and pocketing it for herself. She responded that what happened between her and "her daughters" was none of my business.

I blanched.

I told her that it most certainly WAS my business. She then tried to launch into old issues from before the divorce five years ago. I derailed that immediately, saying that we could talk about anything she wanted to talk about at a different time, and that we needed to remain on the topic at hand. I reminded her that she was under the hospitality of my home. She scoffed at that and did the belittling chuckle thing. I told her that if she couldn't discuss the issue like adult parents, then she needed to leave.
Which she did.

Annette was using THEIR money to please herself. Then trying to pass it off as "none of my business" because the girls "owed her" $30 anyway. I asked her, "When should they owe you ANYTHING?? Further, why should you play the banker and confiscate their money that they "owed you" a half hour before they left for their concert?" I further pointed out that she has contributed NOT ONE penny to their upbringing. She scoffed at me and laughed again.

I repeated that she needed to leave.

She then wanted to take the kids to her home in Wisconsin overnight. I told her that she could, but she would have to drive them home the next day. She refused, saying that "in accordance with the divorce decree" it was MY responsibility to drive the kids on return trips. I then reminded her that I had done her several favors by drving the kids both ways several times over the last few months. I also reminded her that I had given her gas money so she could make the trips when she was short of gas. She replied that she thought I was doing her a favor, not demanding repayment and that she refused to drive them back home the next day.

I stared for a second, blinked once or twice and told her that if she didn't "get it," she needed to get the hell out of my driveway.

The girls begged her to stay and settle things with me, but it was more important for her to leave than it was for her to see her kids and work the situation out with me. She drove off with a flourish and a hearty "fuck off!" to me - in front of my kids - leaving the girls crying in the driveway, and Sam bawling. I hurt for my kids. I sat for quite awhile with all three of them huddled on my lap, crying after she left. Abby said she fears that after every time Annette does this, she will never see her mom again.

I cancelled all other plans for the day, and after they calmed down a bit, I took them all to a movie instead. Sam revitalized pretty quick at the prospect of "Zorro." After the movie, we spent the rest of the night at home, watching movies and eating pizza. That's when Sam did his little dance routine on the fireplace hearth. heh.

Done venting... for the moment.

Taking a deep breath... very frustrated, wishing Annette would fall off the planet and relieve everyone of all the strife she puts us through. I could handle her by myself, but she is so infectious to my kids.

Enough for now.

Dsappointment with God... and Friends...

In recent months I've gone through an unbelieveable amount of devastating, emotional shit in my life. My not-so-usual response left me in a temporal, uncharacteristic depression and an a-typical abrasive moodiness that was the outer manifstation of inner turmoil - despite my wrongly thinking I was handling myself with a modicum of grace and tact. I tend to be someone who lets all his friends lean on him for help, council and support, yet during this period, my antics and out-of-character funk seems only to have driven the people who I considered my friends far away. Not only have I gone through some life-altering, devastating events, but to add insult to injury, the friends I thought I had seemed to grow distant and judgemental and gossiping, as opposed to closer and more supportive. This just added to the pile of hurt and pain.

I put my neck out there for my friends. When possible, i stand in the gap and make myself available to be there for them. I feel as if I open myself up to be there for any of my friends who need me, but when I stepped outside the box of my normal behavior due to uncharacteristic depression and discouragement, my friends took a hiatus. Through the grapevine I hear that many of them "express concern" over me, yet I have not received so much as an e-mail or phone call from any of them unless initiated by me. Well, that's not totally true, either. I have a couple of very close friends who do not fir into this category at all, and you know who you are. It just seems that the bulk of those who say they are my friends, vanished when I acted a bit uncharacteristically. Perhaps they weren't the friends i thought they were. As my friend amanda told me, "Time to reevaluate your friends, Scotty, even the ones you thought were your close friends." For someone half my age, and with half the life experiences, she just might be right.

If my friends' hurts, devastations and short-lived, uncharacteristic behavior drive me away from loving and supporting them, then I would need to reexamine whether or not my friendship with them was genuine. Sure, I like to surround myself with uplifting people and friendships that bolster and rejuvinate me. But in turn, I also like to be present for my friends who need my emotional and physical support. The sad fact is that when you go through hard times and your friends tend to abandon you, a deeper disillusionment sets in, and brings realizations to light.

So, I do what I always do... I pull myself up by my own bootstraps, no matter how long that takes, and move on to the realization that Life is accomplished alone. Polonius said to Hamlet, "The friends thou hast and tried, grapple them to they soul with hoops of steel." I need to reevaluate my friendships and determine just who is and who is not a Friend. This is most certainly a part of growth and wisdom-gaining.

On a slightly different vein...
I have Festival fiends and interactions, but that is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the course of my life and the people I know and interact with. I tend to come across in my relationships (Fest people, business associates, advertising and publishing friends) as a genuine person who is sincere and honest, somewhat charismatic, vital, entrepeneureal and in-the-spotlight. However, on the inside I'm crushed and struggling with the "whys" of Life. Despite my early days in seminary and pastoral work - and councilling, believe it or not - I have lost sight of what I used to believe was "God's" will (call it "Goddess," "Universe," whatever...), or hand in affairs, and the answers to the whole why-do-bad-things-happen-to-good-people scenario.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about this.

I wish there were good answers to this, because I have LOTS of those sorts of questions, lately.

The older I get, the more it occurs to me that God is NOT intimately involved in the flow of the events in my Life. Nor, does it seem, that he is all that concerned with those events or their various outcomes. I am finding that he is primarily interested in my responses, my character development and my desire to lean on Him. Look at this passage from the New Testament... 2 Corinthians 12:8-10.....

* * * * *
8.) At first I didn't think of (my afflictions and
emotional distresses) as a gift, and
begged God to remove it. Three times I did that,
9.) and then he told me, My grace is enough; it's all
you need. My strength comes into its own in your
weakness. Once I heard that, I was glad to let it
happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began
appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's
strength moving in on my weakness. 10.) Now I take
limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these
limitations that cut me down to size - abuse,
accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ
take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I
become.

* * * * *

Don't get me wrong, here, I believe God is there at all times, and is "sovreign over the affairs of mankind" (Daniel 4:34-37 - Nebuchadnezzar's praise after his
madness), but I believe He lets the events of Life unfold as they will - call it "Natural Occurance." His presence is not there to alter the course of natural
events, but rather, to give us grace and peace and a place to run to for help and comfort.

Life happens.

God is in control of the Universe, but does not stick His finger into the mix, unless to accomplish some purpose of His own mind and choosing. It seems to me
more and more that He simply has set Life in motion, governs over it, but does not involve himself in it's ebb and flow.

His "intervention" is incredibly rare. His grace, however, is ever-present. All we need do is appropriate it.

Sure, it's COMFORTING to think that God intervenes and performs miracles that alter the course of Life and History, but I just have not seen evidence of that.

What I HAVE experienced is God tugging at hearts and minds, God guiding and opening doors as we struggle through Life. I have rarely - if ever - witnessed God altering the course of natural events, and that seems to fly in the face of what I was taught in my Sunday School days as a kid. It is a bit disillusioning to find that "real life" is not the stuff of Sunday School fluff.

I remember one instance during my early twenties when I was in seminary, when a young couple in our church had new-born twins that were very ill. The entire
church, it seemed, camped at the hospital and prayed for a miraculous intervention on behalf of those children and their parents. The children still died two days later. It seemed that all of the "fervent, righteous prayers of upright people" had very little affect on the outcome of the natural events. God would have to have stepped in and altered physics to change the outcome.

What I learned from that event - and many subsequent events - was that God was little interested in altering Life's natural course, but that he was extremely interested in the unity the event brought. He was present to comfort and guide, but not to change the course of Natural Occurance.

Hmmmm.... I think as human beings, we tend to paint God in a picture that we seem to THINK he fits - and we have manipulated scripture to back up our desires. And then when He does not match up to that pre-conceived picture of our own making, we lose faith and fall into discouragement and disillusionment. It hardens us a bit, and we sit back and re-work elements of what we thought we already
knew so well. We are left in the wake, experiencing either a mode of blind faith that lacks understanding, yet acts in a "damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead" over-spiritualized bravado; or, we find ourselves in a state of incredible disappointment with God.

Either way, we have learned that God has not altered the events of Life's Natural Occurance.

The only real positive message I find in scripture regarding these things, is that God has promised to be there to help us cope, deal, muddle and manage our way
through the labyrinth of Natural Occurance. His grace is sufficient for me... it's all whether or not I choose to appropriate that grace. Of course, a lot of this is from the viewpoint of my early training. My spirituality has shifted a lot since then.

Any comments? Feelings? Disagreements? Concurances?

My Little Girl....

I am very proud of my daughter, Bryn (pictured on the left). It's times like these when I sit back and say, "Hey, I think I am doing an okay job as a dad."

I have always raised my children to be kind and respectful of others, and to stand up for the "little guy." They have garnered a reputation with their school teachers as being two very "kind-hearted, giving young women," who go out of their way to befriend the more-or-less "outcasts" in their circle of influence. hell, they even had a teacher once tell them, "C'mon, you can't be angels all the time!" (Sheeeesh... someone pull that teacher's plug!)


anyway, the other day, my young, four-year-old son was being picked-on by the shithead neighbor kid, who is twelve. My daughter came in the house and told me that she was going to go next door and have a "few words" with the bully. I approved, and told her i would be right at her back if she needed any aid in her little confrontation. And off she marched out the front door and across the front yard.

A friend of mine and I watched out the front window from the relative bunker-like safety of my living room, as my daughter strode valiently across the grass toward the next door neighbor's driveway, shoulders squared, spine erect, head high and attitude intact. My friend Dave pointed out the fact that Bryn was wearing her sleeveless, black Harley Davidson shirt, a somewhat intimidating factor all by itself. Just the sight of her marching toward the small group of teenagers milling in the driveway next door, made a twinkle of pride glisten at the corner of my oh-too-jaded eye.

From where we stood sequestered in the living room, we could see, but nor hear, the little confrontation that took place over the next few minutes. Bryn marched right over to the pubescent little shit-for-brains bully and stopped abruptly about a foot in front of him. When he turned to look at her, he took two giant, stumbling steps backward, as if being confronted by some nocturnal demonic presence that emerged from his closet in the night. He dropped his basketball, and Bryn hadn't even yet said a single word. His first reaction made my friend and I damn near giddy with reactionary anticipation for what was sure to be a wonderful show.

As the miscreant regained his footing, my daughter launched what must have been unholy hell. There could not have been more than 12 inches between them as her finger came up and pointed in his wide-eyed face. Her hands gesticulated her anger, but she never raised her voice loud enough for me to hear a single word. He stood there, pale and drawn as my kid berated him for his misdeeds. His friends all stood around in shocked silence, watching helplessly, unwilling to stand in the path of Hurricane Bryn.

The kid starting gesturing meekly, obviously pleading for his life, apologetic and sheepish. Bryn's hands went to her hips. She glared him down as he delivered, I am sure, some crackle-voiced, appallingly lame defense for his reprehensible behavior. Dave and I chortled from the living room, mocking, to each other, the neighbor kid's predicament. At one point, the other kids around them glanced toward my house. Dave and I jumped back away from the front window, laughing, not wanting to be seen observing Bryn's onslaught. It was her battle, and I did not want to interfere unless things turned ugly.

After a few minutes, Bryn turned and marched back to the house. She came in and - her voice still shaking from the righteous indignation - recounted the confrontation. I told her how proud I was of her for standing up for her little brother. She earned a ton of respect from me that afternoon.

As I said at the beginning, it's times like this when I take a brief moment to pat myself on the back and realize that I have done an okay job instilling some values in my kids. Standing up for someone who is weaker than you is an admirable quality. Putting your own neck on the block for someone else is altruism at it's best. I am very proud that my daughters have developed a reputation for being kind, generous, giving, caring people. It makes me a bit more confident that I am the kind of dad I have strived to become.

I am beaming as a proud dad should.

Irreplaceable Moments of Time...

I am overwhelmed this morning by the irreplaceable moments of time. Those fleeting brevities that go by without the slightest notice as I pass through the mist that will someday comprise the sum of my life.

Just last week, Amanda (everyone called her "Beaner"), the twenty-one-year-old daughter of some dear friends who owned the neighboring ranch to mine in Ellsworth, was killed in a tragic car wreck when her boyfriend fell asleep at the wheel. She was a bright, shining star paling the flickering pinpoints around her in the swath of the black velvety heavens - incredibly talented and creative; painter, writer, singer. She exuded an inner joy that very few people have ever even known could exist. What a loss! What utter waste of life...

I walked into the memorial service last week and put my arms around my dear friends and couldn't say a word. I didn't want to cry in front of them, as I wanted to give them strength and support and peace. My friend Jodi, Amanda's mother, a woman my age, was beautiful and stallwart, wearing the deep grief so courageously and sadly. I looked her in the eyes and she put her hands to my face to draw me in close and whispered how happy she was that I was there. I was unable to say a word... I smiled and held her tight for a few brief, fleeting moments... and during those seconds saw the lives of my own children pass through my memory. In that moment I felt her loss and wondered how she could even stand there amidst all those people. That sort of pain would be something I could not even fathom having to bear. At that empathic moment I could feel what she felt, and I was overwhelmed beyond expression for her.

My emotions, of late, have been so close to the surface that I have needed to bury them in order to not be overwhelmed by them. I had to consciously push them down so as to not let this thing I felt for someone else consume me.

My daughters, who knew Amanda so well as their babysitter and friend, were sitting with their mom, watching a compiled dvd of photos. I walked over and touched my ex-wife on her shoulder, and the three of them looked up at me, eyes red-rimmed and faces drawn. I picked up my son and sat on the floor in front of Annette, as there were no open chairs. She placed her hand very lightly on the back of my shoulder for only a brief moment. As Amandsa's face filled the TV screen in front of me, the soundtrack began playing that old Eric Clapton song about seeing someone's face in heaven. I was suddenly, unexplicably overwhelmed and I could not stay in that place. I stood with Sam in my arms, looked at my kids and my wife and told them I was stepping outside. I did not want to break in front of them all. I needed to be strong for them, so they could make it through this horrible tragedy.

As soon as my face hit the outside sunlight, I began to cry. I walked down the dirt road to where I had parked my car, kicked off my shoes and sat crosslegged and barefoot in the dust on the side of the road, lit a cigarette and wept.

I buried my face in my hands and tried to pray - a thing I used to be able to do so well. Yet, for the first time in my life felt that there was not really anyone there who gave a rat's ass about the grief and suffering and loss and emptiness; no one to receive with open arms the wandering soul. My four-and-a-half-year-old son came up behind me and actually started rubbing my shoulders and said, "It will be okay, dad." I reached around and took him in my arms and told him how much I loved him. He smiled and went to find me a "special rock" that I could take home with me. It sits here on my desk as I write this.

Not long after, Annette and my daughters came out. I stood, and for the first time in five years, Annette put her arms around me and held me tight. This woman who has hated and abused and run, put her arms around me to comfort me. Me, who has been the strength and support for my kids and everyone around me was being comforted by the person who has caused us all so much pain and suffering over the years. I stood there and found I could do nothing else but hold her tight.

I held my children for a very long time that night, until they fell asleep and I carried them to bed.

I could not sleep.

God wrestles with us in the nighttimes of our lives, but when we awake in the morning, he is gone. He is a dim, hollow facelessness in the dark. Life is so short, and love is so fleeeting. I find myself sometimes grasping at things that will never be there for very long......

Illusions.

Where is the peace...?

"Three A.M."

All night there was silence in the dark house,
Shadow met shadow, the clock chimed the hours;
The cat, abated from her nocturnal roust,
Lay sleeping, feet twitching as she stalked in the bowers
Of her dreams.

Quiet upon quiet where mind meets the dark,
Are remnants of the light you leave in this place;
That same light that with it brings a peace as stark
As the contrast between the moon's sultry face
And the sun's burning beams.

Three a.m. knows all my secrets,
Where Shadow meets shadow and Dark meets the mind;
Where day blends with memory and shows it's regrets,
While your essence brightens and stealthily finds
Firm pinnings in my soul.

To know you as friend brings contentment and peace,
To my troubled, tempestuous, darkening heart;
With sadness and sweetness your life will not cease
Ever to reveal your softness, your art
To lay bare the truth.

Darkness and light, sweet tragedy and pain,
Are mixed in the cauldron of all that you are;
The fire beneath you refines time and again,
Setting you in the heavens as a white, shining star,
Whose radiance casts shadows.

You fill all my rooms with a brightness and love
Like an ephemeral nova whose beauty so rare;
Fleets while it's warmth still lingers above,
As I reach to grasp what I hope might be there,
When I wake in the morning.

And now with the house so quiet, so still,
I sit in the Dark with the muse of your soul,
Bidding me trust and follow my will,
Until such a time when your heart is whole,
And your light seeks it's own place.

"Taming of the Shrewd..."

Never has Fest been so fun for me, and never has Taming of the Shrew been such a fun bit of Shakespeare to play!

I have to be honest and say that I wasn't sure how Mandy would do on the street, not dancing, but she has surpassed my expectations and has been an incredible joy to play against and interact with. The physical comedy is wonderful, and the ascerbic, bitchy wit that pours out of her is astoundingly quick and raw. Loads of fun!

I am looking forward to the next six weekends!

Foxes and Gangbangers.....

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James Montgomery Doohan - 1920 - 2005

I grew up watching the original Star Trek series. While my hero was Captain Kirk, my namesake was "Scotty." My first Star Trek prop was a replica of Scotty's red shirt... I think he was the only wearer of a red shirt who didn't get killed on an away mission...

Rest in Peace, Jimmy Doohan.

"Here's to ya, lad."

"The Paper Boys"

I'm in a mood today.

So here's a stream-of-consciousness piece I started writing some time ago while outlining a possible novel idea. It's a little rough, but I hope you can look through the grammatical and syntax errors and connect with the burgeoning story...

* * * * *


The Paper Boys

The crickets sing to me.

Thirty generations ago, their ancestors sang me to sleep with the very same song. Like lake water lapping or the surrogate hum of an electric fan, the crickets' summer lullaby was the white noise of my youth. Many nights I lay atop our garage, staring into the twinkling solemnity of the night sky; the crickets were the incidental music, playing to me softly, rhythmically, hypnotically erasing the troubles of my day. Their's was the sonatta that bid me escape.

I'll never kill a cricket.

I sit here tonight on the grassy hillock just across the street from the corner house where I grew up. I've been still long enough that the crickets closest to me have begun chirping again. This very spot used to be our neighbor's front yard, or at least a part of it. Now it's a small steep slope running up to the barrier that separates my old street from the new freeway.

The moon wanes and the bright crispness of the stars belies the warm weather, foretelling the coming of autumn. Midnight dew has left a fine sheen of wetness along the tips of the grass, and I don't care that the seat of my suit pants are probably indelibly grass stained.

Burgundy has replaced the avacado green trim, but the body of the house is still painted white.

My house.

I never owned it, never made a single mortagage payment on the place, I do not live there now - nor have I in some twenty-five years, but I claim it as my own. Parts of me are still in there. And sitting here tonight, I wonder if there is ever a way to reclaim the lost and missing pieces of my childhood locked inside those walls. It is said that places can take on the charcter of the people who lived there and loved it. A chill runs up the back of my neck on the tail of that thought.

It's one A.M.

My pipe has long since gone cold. I tap out the ashen tobacco against the side of my brown wing tips. The crickets go silent. In habit, I raise the bowl to my lips and blow a quick, susinct puff of air into the cavity, then run my little finger along the inside, checking for any stray ash. A pipe, of all things. Who'd've thought that I would be a pipe-smoker? "The little kid without a dad grows up all distinguished," says nobody.

I'd smoke a cigar like the rest of the guys down at the club, but I really hate the taste. The pipe, though, is different. How many thirty-something businessmen smoke a pipe? Not many. To me it lends an air of...singularity, individuality. No - legibility. All intellectuals smoke pipes, right? I'm not really trying to be something I'm not, but I do have to keep telling myself that it makes me look studiously elegant. Aloof yet readable. When I first bought it I stood in front of the mirror and worked at just the right way to hold the thing in my teeth. Ahh... vanity is still alive and well! All that's needed to complete the facade is a cardigan and some argyle socks.

With a wry smile to myself I return the pipe to it's place inside the pocket of the suitcoat I left lying in a clumsy bundle on the grass. I'm not a smoker. Not really. But I like the picture it makes. Were my pipe a woman, it would chide me for not taking it out more often.

They do that a lot. Women - not pipes. The nurturing gender are expert at doling out grief. With the slightest provocation they lash out. Then leave. I can almost believe that they care of nothing other than self, feigning love and faking orgasms. Thespians all. Wives and mothers; mothers and wives. They act out their daily routines as dutiful domestics and coddling moms, all the while, deep down inside, hidden out of site, is their well-laid-out plan of escape. Apathy and abandonment.

A distant siren shakes me out of my reverie. "My God! Listen to the bile coming out of me!" I say out loud. And I stand and brush the loose grass off my ass, disgusted by my own mental gymnastics.

A car slowly comes up the street and rounds the corner. I quickly sit back down so I won't look like some strange guy wandering around their neighborhood - as if sitting here will look any better. I clasp my hands around one knee, and nod to reassure them of my harmlessness as the headlights pass over me. After all, this is my neighborhood, my house. But they aren't my neighbors. I'm an outsider to them. An alien.

They drive on.

So why am I so drawn to them... to women, that is? Why am I so distraught over the loss of another one? It's obvious I don't believe my own misogynistic words. They're just the machinations of a hurt, bitter mind. I love women, I just don't know how to make them want to stay.

I stand again, throw my suitcoat over my shoulder and step into the empty street. The warm yellow glow of the humming street lamp illuminates a circle around me, reminding me of refuge.

The breeze stirs, resurrecting another sound from my childhood, this one long forgotten. The leaves of the twin poplars in my front yard dance and rustle on the moving air. The thought occurs to me that I've never seen a poplar since I moved away from this house when I was thirteen. Funny.

I stand here in the middle of the quiet street and close my eyes, listening to the leaves. You can almost imagine the sound of a gentle surf or the prattling of a hard, straight rain on a mid-summer sidewalk. The sound is dissimilar to, yet mimicks the dulcient undertone decible of a bagpipe echoing in some distant glen.

A little boy lying on a garage roof; the stars; the crickets; poplar leaves on the breeze. It's like a layered canvas. Oil upon oil, color upon color, building a translucient picture. Creating a place I want to be. A place I wish I could run to. A Yeatsian wattle and daub cottage.

I open my eyes. Reality.

The pebbly asphalt crinkles under the soles of my shoes, amplified in the quiet of the wee hours. Ever notice how sound echoes more at night? At this moment and in this place, it intensifies both the emptiness of the street, and the welcomness of the nostalgic grassy yard before me. I want to take off my shoes and socks and run through my old lawn.

I exercise better judgement.

All my life I've been running somewhere. Driven to escape. From what I don't know. Wherever I run, it all comes with me. It's a part of me. There is no escape, there is only acceptance and resolution. Absense of pain is the core of denial.

I'm standing in front of my old house in search of something. It is so buried that I can't get my fingers on it. It is out of reach, hiding in the dark.

I don't even know why I'm here.

I turn away from the yard and round the corner, heading back to the neighborhood park a block away where I left my car. At least I got the car. Well, it was mine before the marriage. And I got the stereo. Isn't that all a guy needs anyway? A car, and a stereo? Oh...and a bed...?

Up ahead, my old Mercedes stands out in the dark. It just now occurs to me that it was manufactured the same year I moved away from my old house. The Germans painted their iconoclastic automobiles some pretty wild colors that year. My '74 is a light yet luminescent sky blue, almost white. As I make my way up the street it beacons me back to the present.

The deja' vu here is nearly overwhelming.

Standing on the street-side of the car, I shove my hands in my pockets and gaze over the roof and across the field to the playground where I spent so much time while growing up. Rain or shine, summer or winter my friends and I would meet almost daily at Bellvue Park. Park Board sports and activities in the summer months kept us busy and out of our mothers' hair. An ice rink and warming house during the frigid Minnesota winters kept us from getting cabin fever. Two slides, a jungle gym, a swingset and two sandboxes were the park's compliment.

Along the western perimeter of Bellvue ran an eight-foot-tall chain link fence dividing the park from what we kids called, "The Woods." The Woods, was in actuality, a triple city lot that up to the mid-seventies, despite it's urban location, had survived development. It had one old boarded-up turquoise-colored house in the middle that we all considered haunted, therefore unapproachable. Today there are three modern homes on the site.

When I was a kid, there were dirt paths running through the Woods. We'd sail through there on our bikes with the banana seats, avoiding the path that took us closest the old haunted house, and come flying out where the Woods met the park's chain link fence. In order to miss the fence, the dirt path veered out onto the street, which was relatively quiet, and relatively safe. But one day a kid came flying out of the Woods and into an oncoming car.

Looking down at the pavement below my feet, I realize I'm standing on the exact spot where Billy Hornschemeier passed into cold eternity.

I shake off the chill and utter a brief silent prayer for the anonymous woman who sat weeping in shock in her big black car that afternoon. All of us kids gathered around and silently watched Billy's face turn grey, and his eyes turn to glass. It was the first time I had seen death up close.

* * *

...and that's about it for now...

"As Iron Sharpens Iron"

I have been working on my book for about six years, now. I originally wrote the thing when my, now, ex-wife went into alcoholic in-patient treatment several years ago. At that time, I had sent the one written chapter off to 150 potential literary agents. Sam Fleishman of Literary Artists Representatives in NYC was the one who rose to the top of the heap.

Today, after six-plus years and many set backs in completion, I am ready to forward the finished manuscript and illustrations to Sam. He insists we will have a multiple-book deal, and a sizeable contract within a few short weeks. He encouraged me by reminding me it took J.K. Rowling six years to complete and publish her first harry Potter novel - and then, it only garnered a contract that gave her $4000. A year later, Art Levine of Scholastica saw the small book on a shelf in a local shop in England, took it home to New York, bought the rights, and the rest is history.

"I could only hope," I told Sam. My fingers and toes are crossed.

Last week, my good friend, Carr, sat with me over a few drinks and "let me have it." He started by telling me what an incredible talent I was, then proceeded to tear me apart in the way that only a good, caring friend would. The net result was that he challenged and motivated me to action in several areas of my life. Spurring a friend to do better is what a friend is supposed to do. Placating, coddling, sychophancy is the stuff of enabling acquaintances; prodding and exhorting to good deeds and betterment is the stuff of true friendship.

"As iron sharpens iron, so is a man to his friend," said Solomon in the Proverbs. And he goes on to say, "Faithful and true are the wounds inflicted by a friend."

One is rarely ever moved to excellence without the harsh criticism of a true friend. Thanks, Carr. Your words mean a lot to me.