Mom bought me a clock

Years ago I went to visit my Mom and she told me she had bought me a grandfather clock at a yard sale.  I was excited because at that time I was a fan of grandfather clocks and wanted one. Then she told me it only cost her 10 dollars and my excitement level went down a notch or two.  I thought that either she got the deal of a lifetime or there was something lacking in this grandfather clock she bought me.  She told me it was in her mini van and was too heavy and awkward for her to get out so I could go get it out for myself.  When I saw the grandfather clock she got me I was more than disappointed.  Instead of a real clock made from  real cherry or walnut wood with a mechanical mechanism I found a cheap particle board and plastic cased clock with a battery operated clock mechanism.  The sight of that clock triggered my disgust of all the times she bought cheap imitations of something good and thought it was good when it really wasn't.  It also triggered my annoyance with her habit of shopping for things just to boost her mood and then trying to cram everything she owned into her living space and then frequently telling me how unhappy she was with all the clutter around her and how much she would love to have a more open uncluttered home.  Not to mention the fact that getting her to part with anything- junk or otherwise was almost impossible.  Right then and there I decided it was lesson time for Mom,  I was not about to take that cheap grandfather clock out of her van, that clock represented everything I did not like about my Mother and it could sit in her van and rot as far as I was concerned.  So I went back in the house and basically told her the clock was no good, I didn't want it, and I wasn't taking it.  She asked what she should do with it then and I basically told her I didn't care, it was her problem.  I went home annoyed but satisfied that I had finally showed her the error of her way, maybe this would be the turning point when she would stop buying all this junk and start getting rid of it- I could only hope.  A few days later we talked on the phone and she told me the clock was still in her van and she didn't know what to do with it.  I started to feel a little sorry for her so I said I would take it and put it in my garage.  So there it has sat these past 5 or so years just collecting dust and not keeping time because it didn't work when she bought it- did I tell you that yet?  That the stupid thing didn't even work?  As time has gone by (not that the clock could tell you) and Mom has passed away I realized this was a clock with a story and since I hadn't the heart to throw it out yet, perhaps I should fix it and make it at least useful.  This past week I brought it in the house, dusted it off and installed a new battery operated mechanism in it and then put it back out in the garage.  At least now it works.  That is the least this clock can do for me, but it does more- it is a reminder.  It reminds me of my Mom and her flawed ways and it reminds me of me and my flawed ways too, although it seems to me my flawed ways are not nearly as bad as her flawed ways.  Hmm, maybe that is flawed thinking too....  By the way, when Mom died we had a LOT of junk to get rid of, it appears my little lesson did not work.

Daniel tried to kill me

Why am I laying on the porch waiting for an ambulance with a tourniquet on my upper arm, a towel cinched with a belt around a hole in my forearm, surrounded by Daniel's football team, while one of them is praying for me?  You know it is bad when the football team is praying for you.  It all started innocently enough with a football team party in our back yard.  Daniel invited his team over and I and my two sisters put on a hot dog dinner for about 20 guys.  After the meal was done and the food put away one of the players broke out the ice cream bars which he had in a cooler with dry ice.  Eventually the natives became restless, they did a little boxing with Daniel's boxing gloves, went over to Mullaly field for a while then came back and Daniel needed to do something to make the event more memorable.  I was in the house laying down resting after cooking and feeding a bunch of hungry guys and Daniel called me on my cell phone.  He wanted to make a pop bottle bomb, but he didn't call it a bomb, he called it something else- later the state policeman called it a bomb, but I am getting ahead of myself.  The conversation went something like this- "Hey Dad, OK if we make a pop bottle rocket?"  "What's that Daniel?"  "We just take some dry ice, put it in a 2 liter bottle, add some water then throw it into the field and in a minute or two it explodes making a big noise"  "No Daniel, that does not sound safe"  " Oh come on Dad we have done it lots of times- it is safe"  " No, Mrs Bliss will call the police on us"  " No she won't Dad, come on Dad, Trevor and his Dad do these all the time"  " No Daniel it just doesn't sound like a good idea to me"  "Come on please, please Dad?  You can talk to Trevor he will tell you it is safe"  "Well....... OK I will talk to Trevor"  So I go outside and talk to Trevor, now I ask you, why would a grown man think a 16 year old kid could give him good advice on what is safe and what isn't?  Trevor tells me he and his Dad do this a lot and it is perfectly safe.  I decide to trust his judgment- but I will stay out there and supervise just to make sure it is safe.  The trouble is Trevor did not make the pop bottle bomb that day, Daniel made it and Daniel does not know how to make one.  So the first one he put together is a dud, it just sits out in the field and does nothing.  The second one is going to be much better though because he uses  a smaller pop bottle,  and more dry ice than the first one.  I hold the bottle while he puts all the mixture together, and sure enough this one looks good, it is steaming strong as soon as he adds the water.  Then Daniel screws the cap on, I step back while he starts to throw it.  But just as he throws it it explodes and the bottle tears apart and the cap shoots back behind him.  This all happens so quick that I only hear the explosion and I jump from surprise.  But then what is that burning feeling coming from my left forearm?  I look down at my arm and blood is pulsing out of my arm at about the same rate as a heartbeat.  This is not good and I tell someone to call 911.  Josh Glick takes somebody's cloth belt and puts a tourniquet on my upper arm.  Daniel not to be outdone, raps a towel around the gaping hole in my arm and cinches it down with a belt.  I hold my arm above my head to slow the bleeding and head for the porch to wait for the ambulance.  The 911 dispatcher tells Daniel to get the bleeding stopped and he tells them it is, then they tell the ambulance it is a non emergency run since the bleeding is stopped. While waiting on the porch a state policeman shows up and asks me why we are making bottle bombs.  I start to worry that maybe I will need to go to jail right from the emergency room.  But he lectures the guys on being safe and leaves.  He probably doesn't want my blood in the back seat of his car.  I waited on the porch for what seemed like a long time before the "non emergency run" ambulance arrived.  Once the EMT got there he took off the towel around my arm and pulled out the bottle cap that had made almost a perfect hole there.  He also seemed really puzzled that I wasn't bleeding very much.  Once we got in the ambulance and he started cutting off my favorite plaid shirt with scissors he was pretty shocked to see the tourniquet on my upper arm and asked why we hadn't told him about that.  I guess I just didn't think about it.  Once we got to ER about 6 people surrounded me, three on one side trying to figure out how to stop me from bleeding and three on the other side trying to get a blood sample.  I told them they should just switch sides but they didn't.  Turns out I had a ruptured artery in my forearm and it took a couple tries in surgery to get it patched back up.  They stripped a vein near my wrist and used that to put the artery back together again.  The surgery nurse told me a couple weeks later (when she called to see if I wanted to go out on a date of all things- what did I say to her under anesthesia I wonder?) that the first attempt to put it together failed and it came apart when they took the clamps off it.  I ended up in ICU so they could hook me up to monitors and make sure it stayed together and healed OK for a few days.  They also did some skin stretching over the hole so you couldn't see the artery move every time my heart beat.  Later Daniel apologized, I forgave him, he said he needed to be more careful, I said I needed to be better at saying no to him.  All was well.  I got a month off work and my arm is a good as ever.  (By the way I did not go out on the date.)

Lisa goes Catholic

So how does a Baptist girl end up at a Catholic college?  Good question, but like they say if you follow the money you will usually get to the bottom of most things.  For whatever reason Lisa got a full scholarship for Aquinas College in Grand Rapids.  Even though it was a Catholic school the price sounded good to me and she wanted to go there so that was how she ended up at a Catholic college. I also liked the fact that she would be pretty close to home so we could still see her on weekends.   I don't think they were all that religious there anyway so it didn't make a big difference it seemed.  Lisa spent her first two years of at Aquinas and met one of her best friends there- Kara.  But by the time she was a junior she realized Aquinas did not offer what she needed and switched to Western Michigan to get her Music Therapy degree.  It probably was a good thing she got out of Aquinas because she told me later that the head of the college who was new to that position gave too many scholarships away and had to be removed from his position.  Too bad he didn't move over to Western it might have been a better deal for Lisa.  But all in all she got an education much cheaper than at a place like Wheaton and made some good friends to boot.

Daniel and the chainsaw video

So why was a scented candle burning in the kitchen when I got home from work?  Daniel who was studiously practicing piano was home from school when I walked in the door and to my inquiry about the candle just said that it made the house smell better.  Didn't I agree?  Well yes it did make the house smell better but since when did Daniel care about making the house smell better?  He was the human living opposite of a scented candle.  I was instantly suspicious so I started firing questions at him.  Eventually he broke and told the truth.  Seems he had some buddies over and they were making videos on the Mac in the kitchen when Daniel decided that a running chainsaw was just the thing for the video.  It's a wonder he didn't accidentally cut some one's arm off.  Once they all left Daniel realized the smell of the chainsaw running was in the kitchen so thus the scented candle "just to make the house smell better".  I never did see the video, it was probably rated for a more mature audience than me.

Lisa and the disappointing marching band

Why were Ben, Daniel, and I at a motel in Indianapolis waiting for a marching band event that was not going to happen?  Well it all started when Lisa joined the highly acclaimed and successful Reeths-Puffer marching band.  I found out quickly that this was one winning band.  Mr. Hodson had a firm grip on those kids and they worked their butts off for the marching band every year.  This particular year was no exception and good old R-P won top state honors in their division again.  I was very impressed.  I had previously joined the old man's club sitting around lamenting the general lack of discipline, poor work ethic, and low moral character of today's youth when Mr. Hodson and the marching band blew those assumptions out of the water.  After the regular marching band competitions in Michigan the band was headed to Indianapolis to compete at a national level.  I decided Daniel and I would go down and watch and invited Ben along too.  We drove down and got a motel room in plenty of time for the second round of competition but we didn't have much information and this was early cell phone days so we were having some trouble getting information from Lisa as to when and where the next competition would be.  Finally we got through from the motel room phone to some one's cell phone who was near Lisa and found out they did not score enough points to go on to the next level of competition.  I never expected that, I thought the band was almost guaranteed to win every time they stepped out on the field.  Little did I know that the rest of the country had good bands too.  So we took stock of our situation, decided to drive over to Terre Haute where Ben and I could see the old town where we used to live and then head home, oh course Daniel came along to see how many fast food joints he could get me to stop at since he was not a natural born Hoosier.  It was another lesson in don't count your chickens before they hatch.

David in slow mow

Why was I yelling at David telling him to get his butt over to Mrs. Shoup's and and not come  back until her lawn was mowed?  It was an exasperating time with David working for Mrs. Shoup that summer.  I knew he didn't like mowing her lawn, I knew she was kind of hard to work for, and David had told me how difficult it was to mow around all the trees in her orchard and other obstacles in her yard.  But I was getting really tired of finding him on the old computer in the basement working on one of his video game programs and learning that he was just taking a break from mowing and still had more to go.  I figured he just needed to stick with it and get it done.  It was taking him a couple hours or more to get the lawn mowed with all those breaks he was taking.  I figured Mrs. Shoup was good training for whatever future boss he might run into, in the real world bosses are not always easy to work for.  So that day after finding him home a couple times taking breaks from the lawn mowing job I just lost my temper and scolded him and sent him back over to get it done.  After that I don't remember it being such a problem.  David finished out the summer mowing her lawn without further incident between us.  Although he did seem a little sulky about it.  The next summer David moved on to some other work and Lisa took over the mowing job at Mrs. Shoup's.  She was younger than David and I was a little worried it would be too much for her especially since David had to work at it so hard the year before.  The time came for Lisa to mow and I wondered how it would go, but before I knew it she was home.  I figured she had learned from David and came home for a break before going back and finishing the lawn.  But no, she said she was done.  I'm was a little puzzled, "didn't you mow the whole lawn?"  "Yes, the whole lawn" she said.  It had only been about an hour or less, I couldn't believe it.  And that was how it went every time she mowed, she just went over to Mrs. Shoup's and mowed and got done quick and came home, no breaks, no stalling.  I figured after that David must have hated mowing so much that he just could hardly force himself to do it.  Especially when that old computer in the basement still had a half finished computer game to program.  Now I can say I am glad he is a professional computer programmer rather than a professional lawn mower so I guess it all worked out good in the end.

Ben gets Joe Guiverra mad at me

Ben had lots of friends at Terre Haute Baptist School.   Why did he come home one day with a nasty scar on his head?   He was in a class with lots of competitive boys and he was right in there in the thick of it.  They battled it out in the classroom in academics and on the playground in soccer.  All was going well in the raising of First Born Super Child- destined for greatness of course, anyone could see it, right?  But that day when he came home from school with a scar on his head I first was puzzled then alarmed once he told me how it got there.  He said Andy Guiverra put the scar on his head,  I asked how it happened and Ben said Andy was slamming his head against the cement wall in the boys locker room.  According to Ben, Andy was doing this for no apparent reason.  Suddenly alarm bells went off in my head.  How was my First Born Super Child going to reach greatness if his head was being slammed into cement for Andy's entertainment?  How could this happen when Andy was much smaller than Ben?  Had I over taught the "turn the other check message"?  Where was the fight in this kid?  Maybe we should have let him play with toy guns like the other boys did.  Lots of thoughts raced through my head at that moment and I could tell this was one of those defining times in life when an important speech was called for by the main character  (I had seen this plenty of times in the movies).  So I sat Ben down and I told him his head was a very important part of his body because his brain was in there and you can't do anything without a brain.  I told him you don't let some kid slam your head into a cement wall and just helplessly let it happen, you fight back with all your strength.  In fact I told him if someone is hurting you bad you do whatever it takes to get them off you, even if it means kicking the kid in the privates to get him to stop, you do whatever it takes.  So I make sure Ben knows and understands what I am telling him, he assures me he understands.  I went to bed that night feeling I had added one more block to the building of a man even though he may only be in the first grade now, this is a life lesson for sure.  The next day Ben goes to school, finds Andy Guiverra and kicks him in the privates and tells him I told him to do it.  Andy goes home that night and tells his folks what Ben did and that I told him to do it.  Andy's dad Joe Guiverra is a hot head and a former Marine,  I'm not afraid of him but he does have a loud bark, plus he is my barber and I don't like knowing that he uses a razor on my neck to trim up after a haircut.  What if he just can't resist a little slip of the razor next time I go in for a haircut?  I call Joe, try to explain if from my viewpoint, he doesn't seem too mad so we consider it settled, but it is one of those things were you never feel the same about each other.  Then I have an exasperated talk with Ben, I did not instruct you to kick Andy like that, it was only if you were in trouble I told him.  Ben seems to understand but then I thought he understood the little talk the night before too.  This raising of a great person was not going as well as I thought it would, maybe I needed to lower my expectations from future US President to future US Senator or something.