The Nothing Box

Well, that's not MY dad

Just a little over a week ago was Father's Day. (Seriously? Then why the hell is my Hai Karate jug still on empty?)

And this Father's Day, as most Father's Days, I found myself questioning my adequacy as a father.

I went to church and it didn't get any better. Pastor Doug spoke pretty passionately about all the things a good father is and all the things a good father does. He quoted scripture and he wove in some great anecdotes and, with every word, I was more convinced that I have completely missed the boat on this fatherhood thing.

Then they played this video. 

Now I know Trevor a little bit and he's a wonderful guy. I really respect him. So, if you believe me when I tell you what a good guy Trevor is today, and you know the frame of mind I was in (see paragraphs above), then you would assume that this video would have sent me over the edge and left me wallowing in a depressing soup of guilt and parental inadequacy.

Actually though, I went a different direction with it. I'm not sure how or when during this video I shifted my point of view, but at some point I quit thinking about myself as a father and started thinking about my own father.

Every point Trevor would make, I would tick off on a mental tally sheet. "Nope. That doesn't sound like my dad." Pretty soon, that mental tally sheet was looking pretty messy.

And that's what made me feel better. See, Trevor has his criteria for what constitutes a great dad. And Doug has his. And the Bible has its take as well.

But none of them know my dad. My dad's grumpy. And he used profanity when I was young. And sometimes he would get frustrated (with Mom, or Christine, or the dog, or whatever) and raise his voice. He's pretty smart, but he certainly doesn't know everything (though you really can't tell him that). He wasn't always absolutely consistent in his discipline.

And through it all, he's been awesome. He had prepackaged little bits of wisdom that I never thought were applicable. He would try and tell stories from "when he was my age" and I never related to any of them in the least. But through all my eye rolling, I totally loved him (even at the time) for trying. I loved that he was in there swinging and doing his best.

Those are the things I catch myself doing. And those are the eye rolls I get. So maybe, just maybe, I'm not doing so badly after all?

Not sure what to make of this

I'm sort of numb right now about the Bin Laden news. I'm not sure how I thought I'd feel when this day came (I'd actually doubted it would ever come), but this sure wasn't it.

The man was the architect, the inspiration and the key driver behind so may pointless, tragic civilian deaths. (And I do make a bit of a distinction between non-combatants killed in the legitimate pursuit of a combatant objective and pure, civilian-targeted terrorism.)

I've never questioned for a second our need to pursue this man and bring him to justice. And, as details start to come out about this operation, I'm amazed, overwhelmed and totally impressed with...

• Our President's commitment to pulling this off in spite of the Pakistanis and his ability to say, "No, we didn't say a word to them about this op we were about to pull off in the suburbs of their capital... But geez, they're still great allies and some of the stuff we worked with them on helped us get to this place." A few years ago I had my doubts about Obama and his international relations experience – and especially how he would handle counterterrorism. But, in this instance, it certainly looks like he played his hand as well as that creepy guy in the hoodie and sunglasses who's always on those poker tournaments on TV.
• Our intelligence community. I love the patience and the ability to work a source. I love the little ironies like the fact that OBL was so paranoid he wouldn't let anything with an electron get close to him for fear of being tracked... And that's one of the things that led to us finding him. (Hmm... Huge compound. Luxurious. Eight-times bigger than anything else in the neighborhood. With no internet connection, no phone lines, and no cellular activity? Let's check this place out.)
• Our special ops troops. Two choppers in, without hassle from Pakistani air defenses, boots on the ground, firefight, target eliminated, up and out – no U.S. casualties. As much as it pains me to compliment the Navy, "Nicely done, SEALs."

But, and here's the rub, a human being is dead, A life has been ended. None of the 3,000 have been brought back to life. We just found the guy who masterminded it and "avenged" them.

I can be satisfied with that. But not jubilant. I can't see myself stumbling around Ground Zero in a drunken stupor chanting U.S.A., because a man has been killed. If we, as Americans, feel comfortable with this behavior, my question is, Are these the same Americans who shook their heads and mumbled about barbarism when disaffected Arabs were similarly jubilant about deaths in the United States?

Let me know if you think I'm wrong, but I just can't dance about a dead man.

Maybe that's it. Maybe I'd feel more jubilant if we'd brought him in alive. I remember being much more upbeat about Hussein's capture. It was easy, as a smug American, to see the humor in him being captured, ragged, dirty, scruffy, half-naked, hiding in a hold in the ground. Yea! We got him!

Then we put him on trial and we hung him. (Oh, wait, I mean the legitimately elected Iraqi government put him on trial and hung him.) Come to think of it, the day they hung Saddam I felt just about like this.

Weird. I don't THINK I'm an anti-death-penalty guy. I never have been before. And I guess I'm not now. I'm not sad that Osama Bin Laden is dead. I just don't think it's an excuse for cracking open a 12-pack of Red, White & Blue.

Are you sure you wouldn’t rather get a tattoo?

WARNING: I'm probably going to be dropping some borderline sacrilegious stuff here before this post is finished. But I want to make it clear from the start that I have great big giant slabs of respect for the Mormon Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Assemblies of God, and all faithful practitioners thereof.

 

Adolescence is all about discovering yourself. And part of discovering yourself is trying on things that you’re pretty sure are going to freak your parents out. For me it was boxers that hung down below the end of my soccer shorts. For Corinne it was thermal long johns under her cheerleading uniform. And for Josie, evidently, it’s magic underwear.

No, I’m kidding. (They’re nowhere close to letting her wear temple garments yet.) Josie was baptized this past weekend into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Okay, that was flippant and rude. I mean, like I said, I really do have respect for the LDS Church. I grew up with (and still hold) a reverent fear of the Catholic Church. And aside from the no booze thing, I think I'm getting along pretty well so far with the Assemblies of God.

Seriously.

I do have trouble with some of the doctrines, principles and practices of each. But each is an honest, passionate, faith-based route toward God. And, in the end, I think that’s the important thing. You gotta believe in something. As the brilliant Walter Sobchak put it, “Nihilists?! F*ck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.”

I know that makes me sound kind of theologically wishy-washy. I guess my views on structured religion are influenced by my own fallible humanity. See, I’m an idiot. And I know I’m not alone in that. To one degree or another, we’re all idiots.

Soooo, while I do believe that the Holy Bible is the inspired Word of God*…I also believe that it was transcribed by humans. Passionate, reverent, faithful humans – but humans nonetheless.

I’m confident that God has spoken to quite a few humans (and probably a few dinosaurs too). And some of those humans probably got their parts right. Others probably garbled the translations a bit. Humans mess things up.

Problem is, we don’t know which parts are which. So the safest course is to assume it’s all divinely inspired and accurate but that some parts are just a little wacky. And where there’s wacky, you’ll get “smart” people who’ll insist on explaining things. And that’s where competing theologies begin to develop.

Given that, do I worry that Josie has chosen a church other than the one her mom and I attend? Honestly, no. (At least she’s choosing a church! I would love to see Erin come to the same conclusion.)

I do worry a little about her reasoning and her timing. Is she joining the church now in a star-crossed effort to hold onto her boyfriend as he packs for his mission trip? Seems likely to me.

But so what if she is? If it doesn’t work out with her boyfriend, she’s “wasted” many hours in church developing her own personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Beats the heck out of squandering that same number of hours in front of the PS3 like her brothers would.

So congratulations, Josie! Your mom and I are both proud of you for expressing an interest in exploring faith. Just a word of advice though: don’t let this youthful rebellion thing off the hook quite so simply. As youthful rebellions go, I know you can (and you should) do better.

Being 19 should mean doing some stupid, fun stuff. I’m not requesting that you start dabbling in chemicals and prancing about promiscuously. I’d love it if your stupid fun stuff happened to also be safe and legal.

Dye your hair purple. Try Jeep skiing this winter. Cut classes and road trip to Chicago with friends for a long weekend. Find something so fun that you know you’re going to get yelled at for it…but it’s still worth doing.

As Gardner Barnes so eloquently put it, “Here’s to [you], and the privileges of youth!”

 

*I have respect for faithful followers of religions outside Christianity as well. I believe what I believe – but I can’t bring myself to believe that a good person who honestly lives by another creed will be damned to eternal misery for picking wrong.

Thank God for better offers

On the evening of Friday, June 16, 1994, my friend Scott Hyland stopped by the house. I don't remember if it was an unannounced drop in or just a quickly planned visit. I just remember it turned into a fantastic evening filled with good conversation, laughter, music and a couple of beers. And at the end of the evening, I was very glad he'd come.

The next day I was even more glad.

Because, for those of you who don't remember, June 16, 1994, was the evening when Al Cowlings drove his friend Orenthal James Simpson very slowly around the greater Los Angeles area for about two hours, followed by about 20 police cars and the eyeballs of every sad loser in the world who didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night than watch "breaking news" on TV.

If Scott hadn't come by, I'm pretty sure I would have been one of those losers. So thank you, God, for presenting better offers.

Last night was a similar deal. Some friends had a get together. Corinne (my completely insane wife...but that's a different story) and I attended and enjoyed a wonderful evening of talking, laughing, eating, drinking and enjoying weather that can't accurately be described as fall.

And one of the key advantages of this particular gathering on this particular evening was that it included no baseball fans. So it saved me the weeping anguish (or, even worse, resigned apathy) of watching this.

(sigh)

I just need to let go. I need to revise my expectations and clarify what baseball should mean to me. I should define the value that I find in baseball and eliminate the excesses that can evidently only lead to heartache.

Moving forward, baseball to me will be:

• An optimistic and eagerly anticipated sign that; when spring training starts, spring is on its way.
• An enjoyable radio soundtrack to a summer Friday evening barbecue or a Sunday afternoon garage project.
• A beautiful way to blow a bunch of money at least once a year on tickets, parking and overpriced concessions.
• Something to fill the sports scene until the NFL season has a chance to get into full swing.

I won't have any October expectations from Minnesota baseball in the future. I won't. I can't.

So thank you, Gina and Eric, for offering me a distraction last night. And thank you, Twins, for helping to make my summer great...but my fall miserable. (Don't you know that last part is supposed to be the Vikings' job?)

Dream on

It's going to be a long 8 weeks at church. Pastor Doug just launched a whole sermon series on dreams. And, while I'm sure it's going to be fascinating and spiritually valuable, it's going to be a pain in my ass.

See, I'm married to a dreamer. A visionary. A big-picture thinker who has the fantastic ability to see possibilities and potential.

It's a gift I truly don't have. I really don't. I'm just not a dreamer – either literally or figuratively.

So I'll very rarely remember what I dream about at night. I know I dream. I just can't remember them – even right after I wake up. It's all gone.

But, beyond that, I'm just not that guy who latches onto a goal or an aspiration. I'm more the guy who can't get out of his own way long enough to see the possibilities.

I spend all my time dwelling on why that idea won't work. I spend way too much energy worrying about the things I don't know or the skills I don't have, rather than looking for ways to apply the assets that I do have.

I spent 10 years as an Army logistician. And even I can see the irony in the fact that, rather than being empowered by that experience, I'm more likely to be dragged down by it. "Oh, there's no way we could put together something like that. Do you have any idea all the details involved?…"

What I really should be doing is shutting my negative mouth and just doing what I do well…and let the possibilities open up from there. Just do one thing – my thing – and let that be the beginning. Don't worry about where it's going to take us. (Hell, Corinne'll figure that part out!) Just realize that nothing's going to happen till I start the ball rolling.

Wake up and start dreaming, Greg.

If anyone could appreciate the importance of a good drink, it was that fish

Okay, here's your ethical dilemma for the day.

On a fantastically sunny, calm summer evening, with a crackling fire burning cheerfully and the beloved warmth of family all around, which is the more virtuous path:

• Should one risk the accidental spillage of a cold, hoppy, well-deserved beer by placing it precariously in the grass?

• Or should one reach over to the pet graveyard tree and metaphorically invite a fallen friend to join in the revelry?

Molly was thoroughly offended. ("That's Rainbow's tombstone!") But I'm not sure she understands that this was a good beer. (I want to say Fat Tire, but it looks a little dark. Let's just say not PBR.)

Plus, I think I knew Rainbow pretty well. He and I shared more than a few laughs while I'd give him fresh water and scrub out his little glass fishbowl. That was a fish who liked to unwind and who appreciated the value of a refreshing drink now and again. Not like that uptight jerk, Mr. Wiggles. Boy, did that guy have a stick up his gill.

Click here. My kids' happiness depends on it.

When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.’*

So this is my channeling of Demosthenes. This is my call to action. This is my stirring, ‘Win one for the Gipper’ speech.

Ready?

Please invest three minutes of your life into watching the embedded video below.

Pretty please?



What’s that? What the heck are you watching? It’s a church youth group project starring Molly, Claudia, and cousin Alyssa. It was shot and directed by our very own Josie. (Please don’t ask me what the Glee version of Safety Dance has to do with church youth group. Just go with it.)

There are four teams locked in mortal combat right now for the highest total number of views. (Hey, that’s quite enough of the depressingly cynical comments on mortal combat in the name of religion, jerks. It’s just a youth group video contest.)

So thanks for watching. You’ve made our girls very happy. Want to make them even happier? Watch it again.

I think the kids have until Friday, Aug. 20. So watch it early and watch it often. (It makes a wonderful stretch break at work. Seriously. If your boss gets after you over three lousy minutes, give me a call and I’ll go to bat for you.)

 

 

 

*Love this line from Ogilvy on Advertising. Classic.

Grand theft audience

Is it a sin to steal a church talent show? Cuz if it is, I know four little talents who are headed straight for the fourth ring of H-E-double hockey sticks after tonight’s The Waters’ Got Talent show!

Claudia and Molly both got on the program at the last minute. Their cousins Ben and Emma had played by the rules and were lined up weeks ago. No matter. When the curtains pulled open, all four were primed and ready.

First up was Ben. The program said he was going to perform a trombone rendition of Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Here to Stay. I asked him beforehand if he’d practiced and he just gave me this totally cool look like I’d just insulted him. No practicing, he was totally just riffing. Which is probably why his five-minute freestyle jam rambled on to the point where it started to feel like the drum solo from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Awesome.

Next came Emma, who played the piano. Unfortunately she’s sort of small (not for her age, she’s really tall for her age) and the music stand was sort of large and the stage was sort of high and it all combined to make sure that we could see just about none of Emma. (Which is tragic, because she’s really cute. I’ve included a picture of her here so you can see that I’m totally serious. She’s an adorable kid.) We could see part of one leg. And it wasn’t even the leg in the cast so that we could truly verify that it was really her up there. I’m pretty sure it was though.

Later in the show, Claudia took the stage. By force. She busted out a little Shee Hyung Bo – the latest form she’s been working on with her bo – loud and proud. It was intimidatingly cool. She was strong, confident and nothing could stop her…until she busted up her ankle on the playground afterward. She’s icing it in bed right now to see if the swelling goes down. I’ll keep you posted.

Then, once the crowd was worked up to a fevered pitch, they brought in Molly and her self-taught gymnastics as the grand finale. She flipped, stretched, bent and kicked her way into the hearts of everyone. She probably would have won the coveted iTunes gift card for her age group if she hadn’t included the distracting bit at the end with that stumbling doofus. Talk about a buzzkill.

That was it. That was our evening. And everyone but Erin enjoyed it immensely. (She’s 17 and contractually obligated to hate just about everything. – especially things that might cause her to be late for the first couple minutes of Law & Order SVU. [If you miss the opening dun-dung, you’re lost for the whole episode.])

One special shout out to Bear and his free-form, on-stage performance art. He drew a picture on stage while we all watched, so it was almost like THIS, only totally different. Way to go, Bear!

PS. Mom, click here for video.

Requiem for a betta fish

What is there to say about Mr. Wiggles? What words can do justice to the memory of a fish who meant so much to us all?

Yes, he was a Japanese Fighting Fish. But that didn’t define who he was. He was more. So much more. He was the betta and the omega.

He was a beautiful paradox – a fish bred for fighting, who loved nothing more than peaceful solitude.

To Molly, he was a teacher. He helped her learn lessons of empathy and responsibility as she grasped the importance of changing his water and scrubbing out his bowl frequently.

To Mcnugget, he was a friend. Side-by-side they swam in their separate bowls. (How does that old saying go, “Good fish bowls make for good neighbors”?) What wonderful conversations the two must have had on many a quiet afternoon? Mcnugget never judged Mr. Wiggles or lent any credence to the rumors of his violent reputation. And, for his part, Mr. Wiggles was never one to embrace the baser stereotypes of Mcnugget’s common goldfish heritage. And so the two became inseparable (well, unless you’d pick up one of their bowls and move it to a different room or something).

To Balloo and Felix, he was a worthy and noble adversary. For a lesser fish, the thought of two cats perpetually drinking the water out of your bowl in an attempt to get the water level down low enough that they might reach you could have been enough to induce a paralyzing fear. But Mr. Wiggles was made of sterner stuff. He never lashed back in frustration nor cowered in terror. He merely went about his business (such as it was).

To Claudia and Molly, he was a bridge. That wise old fish demonstrated the need for developing a step-sisterly sense of trust. Claudia learned how important the well being of that fish was to Molly and realized that it was up to her to carry that torch on the many days when Molly wasn’t around. And Molly learned to trust that Claudia had the best interests of good Mr. Wiggles at heart and that she wouldn’t let him go without food or let him sit in a bowl that got TOO terribly nasty.

To Josie, he was a redeemer, as he swam into our lives and helped fill the void left by Rainbow after the unfortunate BUT ACCIDENTAL leap of destiny a few years ago. That leap left Josie scarred and guilt-ridden. But bringing Mr. Wiggles into the home helped bring closure to those wounds.

And, in the end he was, yes, a fighter. Oh Mr. Wiggles, was that indeed a tumor on the side of your head, as Josie speculated? Or was it simply the distortion of shapes as your floating body rested on the surface of the water, day after day? There’s no way for us to know, because you were never one to complain. (Not like Jasmine.) No complaints from you. Just a quick, frantic scramble to the bottom of the bowl whenever any of us would poke you to check for signs of life.

Godspeed, Mr. Wiggles. Swim strong. Swim true. Swim free, as you twist and swirl your way into the vortex of the great beyond. And, while none of us may say with certainty what lies at the other end of that pipe, I, for one, pray that it’s a whole school of kindred spirits for you. A happy band of Japanese Loving Fish.

Mawidge

Went to a wedding today (Corinne's sister Rochelle and her fiance Sam). Pretty standard stuff, for the most part. Dog interrupted the ceremony. Sister-in-law took a football to the side of the head. Boys were hitting each other with dress socks filled with sand. You know the drill.

But one exceptionally ultra-cool thing was the accent on the guy who performed the ceremony. I'm not sure if I can precisely define it. (I'm lucky if I can separate Cockney from Australian.) It was somewhere in that British family though. It was almost a Terry Gilliam voice, so you kind of got the lurking suspicion that this whole scene was about to devolve into a Monty Python sketch. But in a good way.

And it kind of got me thinking. If I were to give up writing and go into the justice of the peace business, I would absolutely start working on a cool accent (French Canadian? Scottish? Pakistani? Whatever accent it was that Peter Cook was working in Princess Bride?...). Because, if you're getting married and you're checking out your JOP options (or "JOPtions", for those of us in the biz), you're totally gonna go for the guy with the kick-ass accent. They're just fun to listen to.