Tim's Favorite Blogs
Media Matters
Blog Directories
Thursday, November 27. 2008
To Love, Rather Than to Be Loved
Today is the day to be thankful, if we’re only going to be thankful one day of the year. Some days, I’ll stand in the shower and make a little list in my head of everything that makes me thankful. It’s a useful tool when I’m feeling depressed and having difficulty getting on my way.My friend Lisa reminded me of the line from the movie Cast Away, the one that really defines the film and is a truth of life, “…you just have to keep going and never give up, because you never know what the tide will bring in the next day.”
So, I make a list of things for which to be grateful and it reminds me that life isn’t just a series of disappointments interrupted by a few unwavering distractions. And at this juncture of time, maybe we need a few more distractions and more time spent remembering that list.
First of all, I’m always thankful for my family, especially since they are all in different parts of the country. We are separated by distance, but connected by all the electronic conveniences: e-mail, a family online message board and our cell phones. We chat often by text message, especially my sister Elaine and brother Tony — the Colorado clans. They are both married with Children and now their kids are quite grown! Adults even! Nice kids too!
I was about to wax poetic about ever wanting to father children myself, but thankfully, my mind came back to reality! The plan for this week was for me to be in Colorado today, enjoying Thanksgiving with them.
Sometimes, I’ll be sitting on a bus going to work with my ears plugged with my iPod, listening to some Grateful Dead or Zappa, or Jane’s Addiction, David Bowie and all of a sudden my phone will buzz in my pants pocket, the long single vibration. Sadly, it offers no … esoteric … thrill. Anyway, I’ll pull out the phone and see a text message from Tony, quoting a Frank Zappa tune. “Was a modified dog.”
The family is very much a Zappa clan. In June 2006 Tony and Elaine traveled to Los Angeles and we went to see the Zappa Plays Zappa concert at the Wiltern Theater. That was a great experience. Less than a week later our brother Carl died. That was an experience.
I’m grateful I got to be there for him at the end of is life.Then there’s my sister Mary Lou. We don’t get along when it comes to politics. I blame it on her living in Texas. Everyone thinks California is the state for weirdoes … well, we do have the Terminator as governor … ehh …
Anyway, she is still a kind, loving and generous woman with two nice children, one cutie of a granddaughter and she makes the best cookies! I’m always grateful when I get a tin of peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies for Christmas! She’s the one I called first when our brother Carl died and that says a lot about where she sits in my list.
Cheryl, now she’s the matriarch of the family. She and I are kindred spirits beyond even my wild imagination. So much so I often hate to admit it to myself. Cheryl is the free thinker, far more open-minded than I could hope to achieve. She struggles and perseveres, triumphs and perseveres and when life is just moving along in that flat line of normalcy, Cheryl perseveres. Cheryl likes to redefine normal. Boredom is unacceptable.She’s the one who nursed me back to health after my first heart attack; moved here from … Colorado I think! Set up residence, stayed for a couple years and then moved to Tampa, Florida. She’s a Floridian once again! She also has a son, Christopher. I miss that guy, wish he would get online with us again.
Rick is a different story altogether. He’s the older brother, a little more … err … let’s just say he isn’t Wally Cleaver, he’s more like Eddie Haskell. Leave It To Beaver. Just the title alone would make us laugh, for all the obvious reasons. “I’d like to see the Beaver, Mrs. Cleaver!” You have to hear Rick say it, he knows the proper inflection.
Rick should move to Hollywood and become an actor. He’s a natural. He’s a professional musician, a damn good one too — played with Bo Diddley, among others — but honestly, he’s an actor. Taught me how to fake bumping into things, one of my favorites bits of humor. Once, when we were incorrigible teens, he and Doug Schmidt stopped traffic on 68th Street in Milwaukee, right there at the intersection of Kinnickinnic Parkway.He always made a dummy for Halloween and we used that to stop traffic too. Damn, if I ever got in trouble before the age of 15 you can bet Rick started it. He just seemed to be having more fun than a teenager should be allowed.
We had the basement bedroom in our teens and would often smoke pot before falling asleep. Sort of a hippie version of Leave It to Beaver, or The Waltons.“Great pot Tim.”
“Thanks Rick. Good night.”
“Good Night.”
Music is the best Rick, but you should be in the movies.
Then there is my brother Ken — I’m gonna say Kenny ’cause I can. Born eight years to the day after me. How’s that for a birthday gift! He has two great kids as well and a wonderful wife. He started his professional life as a DJ and now finds himself an executive in the radio business. Yes Ken, you are an executive. Darn good one too!
One of Ken’s few failings, he doesn’t like Frank Zappa. But we love him anyway. Don’t speak to him much either, but we do hear from Ken and his wife and kids from time-to-time. They’re doing great. His son, my Godson, is in college. Man, how I’d love to be a more corruptible influence in his life … in a benign, not likely to get arrested sort of way.This begins my list of things that get me going in the morning. My family and their families, and then all my friends: Dan, John, Eric, Berger, Bill, Alan (he reads this blog religiously), Terry, Ray (and Akimi) and Gary; Lisa, Dani, Mel, Kimberlee, Christina and the buds in the Surf Shack and Tim’s Dive Club!
And then I remember I’m grateful to have woken up this morning, still breathing, with one more opportunity to see what the tide brings in.
Calendar
Quicksearch
Archives
Categories
AD Links
Referrals
Syndicate This Blog
Blog Administration
Powered by
TheForkesReport