Family Rules

Family Rules

My twelfth birthday was coming up and I'd never had a birthday party.

A half year into my freshman year, I was fence sitting between the fast girls
with the biker boyfriends, teased hair and heavy war paint, and the
artsy Bohemian crowd.
I wanted to invite about 10 kids, see if we can all hit it off. I had
some baby sitting money and hoped
for a supplement and a ride to the market.
My old man was the paragon of rule breakers. After a few Buds and a shot
of Jack Daniel's, he'd balance beer cans to the ceiling and all the
patripsycho rules
would come tumbling down.
One day his dinner isn't hot enough, "Kiss the pan, Ruthie!"
Or he's hollering for quiet while Cronkite's on the tube.
Another day he drives a go cart through the living room.
One day he stalks an offensive driver, sometimes for miles. We'd end
up in Belmont! There were fist fights! Another day,
he'll play the drawing game for hours on the old wooden table, invite
the neighborhood ne'er do well over for a cold one,
eat lit cigarettes and tell dirty jokes, no bed time, and all the free
beer you can sneak. He'd inhale his neglected dinner at 3 AM,
or drag Ruthie out of bed to fix something.
I wait till the old man is engulfed in his smoky cloud of Ella and Satchmo,
about 3 beers in.
We'd haul out stolen pads of drafting paper from his government job as
a layout artist,
before digital put the hand lettered sign trade out of business.
We pulled out the Eberhard and Faber 6325 ebony pencil.
We drew plans for a party stage setting. Caricatures and sketches of
the whole bunch. A list of yummy snacks with letters all decorated
like birthday cakes.
We planned and drew till the morning dinner bell rang.
I caught up with him the next night after Walter, filling in his man
chair. My greedy arms over flow with drawings and plans and lists.
"Hey dad, remember you said we
could go shopping for my birthday party tonight?"
"We're not doing anything for your birthday.” He grunted, as he
turned up the volume.

Thumbs Up

Were you shown how you got here, or how to get out alive?

They say the memory of you is wiped from the earth in one generation. 40 years.

No one who knows you now will be alive 40 years after your death.

Unless you leave words behind. Or an Opus of some sort.

Or you discover something that other people want. One shot to do what you came here to do.

A buddy sent me a link to

.http://www.sawstop.com/

The technology is genius. It's a breakthrough safety device that uses an electric brake

detecting your signal (or the hot dog they use in the demonstration) and immediately

stops before anyone's thumb goes flyin off! It is to the table saw that airbags are to cars.

Wish Otis told me to buy stock in this one.

Anyway, after lopping off my own thumb a while back, it perked my interest.

This is an incredible invention! That guy will be known beyond his 40 year allotment!

I say to myself.

Although, the only way to determine it's impact on thumb ejections,

is by the decline of the ones that don't happen. Huh?

But folks, in the year 2009, the number of digit/saw related injuries dropped 50% in 6 months.

Of course, I think they should put it in the drinking water.

And that guy's layin on the beach with this one. (and reading my book).

Pilgrim's Progress

The First Time I Met Otis

I was 11 years old.

I sat in a wing-backed chair in the solarium.

I watched from the sky as foggy light filled the room.

His breath subdued all sound.

“Why do my fingers bleed when I gather flowers?” I asked.

He held me until I fell asleep.

Otis and I have a cerebral jocularity that’s hard to come by these days.

Typical volley:

“I Don’t Know How to Love You”

"This ain’t 300 AD, Man! Grab a dishtowel!"

“So, Why is it necessary to create 5,000 species of butterflies?”

Without a prayer or a Chinamen’s chance, I stand there, legs apart,

shakin’ my fist to the sky.

And on the dialog goes.

When your first morning thought is Otis,

He tells you stuff you never heard before.

Or before you think of the question,

the answer is already there.

I cut off the top of my thumb on my belt

sander. I watched it eject from my body

like a grasshopper.

I yank the rest of me away and the

sander rolls off like a Tonka truck.

I jerk it back with it’s wire leash, and

somehow turned the blasted thing off.

I pull my coat over my good arm and

start on the run over the tractor snowbanks to

my neighbor Mercy’s house.

But when I got to the top of the stairway,

I fainted. Out cold.

I woke up to Rufus pawing on my ear and

crawled to my cell phone to call for Mercy and John.

Our first stop was Urgent Care. They took one

look and sent me to ER.

I’m doin’ the “Reagan on the stretcher” jokes

and singing off key Christmas carols

in the corrider.

John told me how his 18 month old son

lost his pointer in a food processor.

Everyone has a story like this.

A brush with injury is a lesson hard won.

It was priceless to me.

After my singing got old, I straggled over to a nurse

practitioner.

“I’ll stay here all night if you please gimme somethin’

for the pain.”

He stuck me with nerve blocks, antibiotics,

tetanus, and some heavy artillery for the pain.

Then I let myself cry.

I cried because I had no daughters or sons or

mothers to call.

John left the room for a minute.

“So Otis, what’s up?”, I say.

“I put you here.”

In place of my own, He gave me this soft-spoken,

unadorned, faith walking family who wreathed me with

a kind of love I’d never felt before.

The children took my boots off and made me

tea. They stood ready, rubbed my back

and drew pictures for me.

I had no insurance so Mercy called her trusted

homeopathic advisor.

Three times a day I stuck my sheared stump

into a mixture of ‘hot as I can stand it’

herb infused water, then a two minute dive

into polar bear water.

“Within a week it will grow back.”

Mrs. Advisor says.

We studied my injury for home school.

We chat, fold clothes and sing while

they mend my thumb and the pain felt

good because Otis used them to love me.

The Flag

My brother, Pete, is a VietNam Veteran. His job title was 'Special Effects'. More vividly,

he filled body bags. He went through pockets. Floaters.

After the war, I greeted him with peace signs and flowers for his gun.

Now he lives in the northeastern part of Maine, near the Canadian border. He checks stove burners too many times and likes to be alone.

He's gracious and good hearted, strong and scarred.

His nightmares wake him up 5 times a month, and Agent Orange induced Diabetes has numbed his feet and wants to make him blind. One of the last Uncivil War Unknown Soldiers.

He drenched it in an alcoholic induced self medication for 35 years, then cold turkey'd it.

Hey, Pete, I love you, man. We were in the foxhole together.

Remember we found the empty ice cream container with the bloody butcher knife, on the back porch in Wellesley? Followed the trails. Remember being locked out, the Olman gone for days. No one knows where the hell he is. Waiting for him in the bar parking lot, till the fishing boat woke us up? When Ruth was lost to us?

You joined the army a day after your 18th birthday.

But no man should see what you saw. Or do the things they made you do.

Otis

K. Many of you don't know Otis. On top of that, you don't know My Otis.

You know how this 'Godstuff' is all kinda freakish and like, everyone's got their

own? I'm just sayin.

Otis is my friend. You can call Him 'voices' in a diagnosed bipolar coaster

woman's mind. You can call him my 'spirit guide'. You can call him anything you want.

But that's the point, isn't it? You call it.

I've been alive for over half the century. I've seen the 1st TV, moonwalk, and microwave.

I hid under school desks and went to Woodstock, which, BTW, was a trip.

You get so you notice things. You see a design. Things add up. You gain some kind of

strength from it. It may be dark and you have to rely on something you can't see.

Otis walked with me through growing up with a suicidal, emotionally vacant mother, an alcoholic father, abuse, a teen 'hidden' pregnancy, lotsa hippie thumb rides, infertility,

a 27 year marraige, a divorce.

Three day binges.

Otis stays with.

.