I thought "Gasoline Alley" was closed

Gasoline Alley was one of my favorite comics growing up -- not hard-edged or hard-hitting, granted, but gentle and good-hearted. And it was multi-generational, where characters age with the readers, blazing a trail for current favorites which use this device, like For Better or For Worse. Gasoline Alley provided smiles, as opposed to guffaws. Not that the Curmudgeon is opposed to guffaws -- but I, too, am aiming for smiles here. (If you find here an occasional guffaw, so much the better.)

Anyway, Gasoline Alley was dropped by the Chicago Tribune ages ago, but apparently not discontinued. I just found it -- looking for something else of course. I've set up a link to follow it for awhile; I hope it's still as nice.

Good News / Bad News

All five kids are "in the house" now, at least for awhile. This Summer may be the very last time we are all together like this.

And I have decidedly mixed feelings about it. Sort of like the "good news/bad news" jokes that were once in vogue....

Good News: They're all home.

Bad News: I can never lay down on the couch and watch TV.

Good News: Older Daughter is a college graduate at last.

Bad News: She's unemployed. She says she's looking for work in Indianapolis (wherein resides her boyfriend, sometimes herein referred to as "ODB" for Older Daughter's Boyfriend) but that's hard to do while staying in Chicago. And when she was in Indianapolis, last week, at the home of ODB's family, how many employment agencies did she visit? (If you answered "none" or "zero," you answered correctly.) We've encouraged Older Daughter to look for work in Chicago -- hiring on at a national concern might open up an opportunity for her to transfer to Indianapolis... or wherever ODB decides to go to grad school. But she's babysitting instead. Older Daughter does things her way, or not at all.

Good News: Oldest Son snagged not one, but two internships -- both in his field -- this summer.

Bad News: They're both unpaid.

Good News: Middle Son has finally realized that he needs to get a summer job.

Bad News: He hasn't actually found one.

Good News: Middle Son is looking for a job.

Bad News: This does not deter him from going out every night at 10:00 p.m. or later and coming home as late as 1:00 a.m. He then finds it difficult, for some reason, to get up in the morning, so his job search starts in the afternoons -- and he's surprised that he's only hearing about jobs available in afternoons and evenings. That would interfere with his baseball schedule. Of course, his continuing concern about baseball is...

Good News: Middle Son seems serious about getting better and stronger and improving his pitching velocity this Summer.

Bad News: He's not playing in any of the prestige Summer leagues. This kid is 6'4" tall, a left-handed pitcher; he has potential to become very good and maybe, just maybe, play baseball professionally -- but somebody besides his (possibly prejudiced) old man must see him play. I don't think scouts will be coming to the games in the league where he's playing this Summer.

Good News: Youngest Son was the starting pitcher for his grammar school team yesterday and was not charged with a single earned run.

Bad News: Just a whole bunch of unearned ones.

Good News: Oldest Son finally talked me into getting a high-speed Internet connection for the home.

Bad News: Our chances of seriously limiting Younger Daughter's on-line time have just about vanished. At least, enforcement of meaningful limits will become that much more problematic. And confrontational.

I could go on, but the end of the month is coming, and I have to figure out a way to get next month's rent....

Confessions of a public masticator

I was enjoying a sandwich at my desk when my colleague walked in and sat down.

He countenance was grave; his manner direct: "Have you ever masticated in public?"

I was shocked by this question. I fought the urge to panic and flee. Since I could see no easy out for me, I felt I had to confess.

"Yes," I said.

"When was the last time?" he asked. (What did he know? I wondered. What did he suspect?)

I felt full disclosure might was the only safe course: "A week ago Saturday night," I answered. "In Champaign, at a restaurant."

"Did you feel dirty and guilty when you did it?"

I had not expected the moral question. On reflection, though, I found I did not feel either shame or guilt. "No," I answered. "It was the only way for me to swallow my food without choking on it."

My colleague threw back his head and laughed. "When we're gone," he said -- meaning our generation, not us two in particular -- "it's all over for English. The younger people neither use nor know the language."

To masticate is to chew. What did you think we were talking about?

McCartney, wife announce split

Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife Heather have announced that they are separating.

Sir Paul is 63.

Now we know the answer to the musical question that McCartney asked nearly 40 years ago (Will you still need me/ Will you still feed me/ When I'm 64?): Apparently not.

Hmmmmm

Neil Steinberg, in today's Sun-Times, quoting Dr. Samuel Johnson: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."

Uh oh.

One down -- four to go

Older Daughter graduated from college this weekend.

Probably.

Her name was in the program. Her name was called and she walked across the stage at the English Department convocation. She received an empty folder, however -- all of the would-be graduates did. The school thinks they've graduated, but it reserves the right to say differently after this semester's final grades are turned in.

Still, despite the weasel words in the graduation program, I am confident that Older Daughter, in fact, graduated. This was a proud moment for the Old Curmudgeon, one not even ruined by Oldest Son's cynical (if probably accurate) observation, gesturing generally at the several hundred English graduates, "The unemployment rate just went up in Illinois...."

Older Daughter is now officially unemployed. And she hasn't yet figured out what she will do to remedy this. She doesn't even know when she's moving home. She figures she can stay in her Champaign apartment until August, but that would make it difficult to find work in Chicago. She should be here, now, pounding the pavement as of this morning. Instead she talks vaguely of babysitting in Chicago and working in the bookstore in Champaign. Without violating the established laws of nature, this plan can not possibly work.

In the last couple of months Older Daughter has toyed with the notion of going to law school -- she decided to explore this possibility too late for the coming school year, but she'd already indicated she intended to work this year anyway. At first it was to earn money for nursing school. Nursing school? Not that there's anything wrong with nursing, obviously -- but an English degree is not the traditional entree to a nursing career.

And Older Daughter has firmly rejected anything having to do with "business." But what's left when you throw that out? (Besides nursing. And babysitting. And maybe working in the bookstore.)

The sad fact is that Older Daughter will lose her health insurance benefits in a few months, not because her mother and I are big meanies (though we may be) but because she will 'age out' of our coverage. If she doesn't return home, she won't be insured on our auto policy. Not that she presently has a car, or any hopes of acquiring one.

LSS and I are hoping to have a long chat with Older Daughter when her "graduation brain" gets back to something approaching normal. It won't be today. Older Daughter's called already today, wondering whether I still have scrap of green paper she gave me with directions on where to go for Saturday's ceremony. That long-since discarded scrap of paper may -- or may not -- have on it the telephone number of the company that rented the caps and gowns and there seems to be some question as to whether it is already too late for Older Daughter and her boyfriend (ODB) to return these items.

Welcome to the real world, Class of 2006. We're probably not ready for you either.

I second the motion

Richard Roeper says Jim Thome looks like Mr. Incredible.

You know? He's absolutely right. I wish I'd thought of it first.... In fact, if I'd been smart enough to go to Harvard (like Kaavya Viswanathan) I might have told you that I did think of it first....

If it's raining, we must have a game scheduled....

Spring comes sporadically in the Midwest; many years we go from Winter to Summer in Chicago with no transition at all. This has been a warm Spring, and, generally, a nice one, weather-wise. But once youth baseball starts, all bets are off.

Take this week for instance: To everyone's chagrin and dismay, I coach Youngest Son's Pony League team. We have only one game scheduled this week, on Wednesday. Youngest Son also has games scheduled with his grammar school team on Tuesday and Thursday.

Yesterday, the weather was nice -- but, then, we didn't have a game. But today, Wednesday, and Thursday? Tom Skilling says we may have the most rain we've had all year.

I begin to take this all personally....

Doing Dad duty, part one -- and an eventual commercial tie-in to The Da Vinci Code

Middle-aged men are supposed to be established in their careers, with accumulated vacation time and "people" to take care of things when they can't be at the office. At least that's what I've been told.

Unfortunately this middle-aged man is a sole practitioner, barely covering the rent at the moment. This is an inevitable consequence of my recent office move: I wasn't working a couple of months ago; I'm not collecting any fees now.

But I sure have a flexible schedule. (When you don't have enough business it's real easy being flexible.)

And my Long Suffering Spouse, who's working as a teacher, and whose benefits package currently includes our health insurance coverage, has very limited flexibility: It's almost more work to plan a day off than it is to work the day.

So when the trainer at Younger Daughter's school called last week to advise that Younger Daughter's shin splints had returned with a vengeance, I was delegated to obtain the medical treatment.

Younger Daughter first came up with shin splints last year, as a freshman, when she ran cross country. We discovered she had flat feet; we got inserts for her feet and different shoes and she took some time off from running. Things got better. Then she ran track in the Spring of last year -- and the shin splints came back. She couldn't finish the season.

We therefore entered into this Fall's soccer season with a certain trepidation, concerned about the possibility of recurrence. We didn't notice when Younger Daughter began popping Advil or Motrin by the handful; we had only begun to notice that our supplies were dwindling when the trainer's call came. Apparently Younger Daughter was finding it difficult to actually go up and down the stairs in the school. The trainer suspected that the shin splints might have actually ripened into stress fractures.

So I drove to work on Tuesday, not because I had a doctor's appointment, but just in case I was able to procure one.

It turns out that it is most difficult to get in to see an orthopedic doctor on short notice. I called the doctor who successfully treated Youngest Son's strained MCL during football season; the prior relationship was enough to get the appointment secretary to take my call until she figured out that I was calling about a different child. Then I got routed back to the triage nurse -- in fairness, more because of the doctor leaving for vacation Thursday than because of any other factor. But I was at my silver-tongued best, and the triage nurse bounced me back to the appointment secretary. I got a Wednesday appointment.

My office mates were impressed: No one, they said, gets an appointment with a specialist in under 24 hours except in cases of the most dire emergency.

LSS was not so impressed: Maybe we should call someone else, she said. This delay was unacceptable; our daughter is hurting now. I persuaded her that this would not get us seen any faster. She said maybe we should go to the emergency room; I reminded her that when we took Youngest Son to the ER after his injury at football practice, the doctors there casted his ankle. But it was a knee sprain, as I've mentioned already. So going to the ER would not necessarily be helpful.

So we kept our appointment with the orthopedic doctor. That is, I kept it: I picked Younger Daughter up at school at 2:00 p.m. She got out at 1:30 p.m. She didn't miss a minute of school. But I missed another half day of work.

The specialist is a nice young man, very smart and apparently very competent. He told us the x-rays he took were inconclusive, but when he examined Younger Daughter he agreed that she did have shin splints so severe that they might have become stress fractures. If the bones were actually fractured, the treatment would of course be different. The only way to find out, he said, was to have a bone scan done. But, unlike the x-rays, this test couldn't be done at his office.

Once again, LSS was not impressed: What do you mean we have to wait again? And then he'll be on vacation and we still won't have an answer?

I got back to the house and started calling the hospital. Sure we can do the test for your daughter, I was told: How about next Tuesday? I knew that wouldn't go over well, so I whined and I moaned and I begged and I pleaded -- and I eventually got an appointment for the next day, Thursday.

Of course, I'd miss another half day of work. This time, I had to pick Younger Daughter up at noon.

But it wasn't all bad. I got to read back issues of the New Yorker in the waiting room. And one of the old people who came into the room actually was brave enough to turn off the TV. I wouldn't watch the soaps or the talk shows, you understand, but they are a distraction. And naturally, although the White Sox were playing an afternoon game, the telecast was only on cable. But I would never have mustered the courage to push the off button. I'd be afraid someone would yell at me.

Younger Daughter made me buy her a late lunch in the hospital cafeteria; this was during the two hours between tests. She told me how she'd talked to the tech about how she was studying bone development in Biology this semester and the tech was very informative then about all that was going on. Eventually, the radiologist came in and added his comments -- what I heard was that he saw no fractures. I thought this good news -- but what Younger Daughter heard was that she had "mild" shin splints. She was insulted.

LSS was furious when she heard this, even though I tried to "spin" it by leading with the news that the radiologist found no fractures. He's incompetent, she said; we have to change doctors, she said. I said, wait a minute; this isn't the doctor who's providing treatment, this is only the doctor reading the bone scans.

I agree that Younger Daughter and LSS are right to take exception to the suggestion that these shin splints are mild. Younger Daughter went to the trainer because the pain was intolerable -- and she has a high pain tolerance. Every child is different: Her sister, Older Daughter, was the model for the Princess in the Princess and the Pea. She could never have endured the constant pain that Younger Daughter put up with for weeks so she could play soccer. Not that there's anything wrong with low pain tolerance: I myself am allergic to pain. (This goes hand in glove with my natural cowardice.)

But I was just a tad upset that LSS was so seemingly critical of everything I'd done.

And then it hit me: Wives are never satisfied with what their husbands do. LSS wasn't really upset with me; it's just part of the job description. Wives are so used to us husbands performing our duties in a haphazard manner, so they have to pick up behind us, that they don't always recognize those few occasions where we may actually get it right. And it's not that wives are dissatisfied with how we perform our fatherly obligations -- no, this general dissatisfaction extends to all areas, and I do mean all areas, judging by the many commercials for... well, you know.

And then I hit on a commercial tie-in: The Da Vinci Code will open in a week or so, perhaps the most anticipated potential blockbuster of the Summer movie season. A central premise of the book, of course, is that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had a child. Do you think Mary Magdalene would have been satisfied with everything her husband did?

In fact, that's why I dismiss this central premise of The Da Vinci Code out of hand. If Jesus had been married, there would be evidence of spousal disapproval in the Bible.

Consider the miracle of the loaves and fishes: This is recounted in every single Gospel narrative. If Jesus had been married, the story would have ended very differently -- something like this: And, lo, Mary Magdalene came to Jesus and said unto Him, "So, Mr. Big Shot. These people come all this way to hear you talk and all you give them is bread and fish? You couldn't come up with a cold beverage for everyone, or maybe a nice slice of pie?"

Thoughts while walking home

The Cadillac Palace Theatre is not far from my undisclosed location, and I've walked past it a couple of times in the past few days since Spamalot returned to Chicago.

In fact, I've walked by in the early evening, as people were arriving for the show.

And this temptation has almost overwhelmed me: Should I or shouldn't I try out my Silly Walk as I go past?

No, Oldest Son is not going to be a drug dealer this Summer

That's just an unfortunate misunderstanding caused, probably, by poor cell phone reception during a conversation yesterday between my Long Suffering Spouse and our Oldest Son.

Oldest Son was calling to tell LSS about the interview he had with a guy he met in a gas station a couple of weeks ago, when Oldest Son came to Chicago for Ring Day. This guy approached Oldest Son at the gas pump and asked if he had yet secured summer employment. When Oldest Son said no, the man said he represented a line of vitamins and health food and that he was looking to hire college kids. He had a website that Oldest Son could look at. The URL was provided and cell phone numbers were exchanged. Eventually an interview was set up for last night at a super-mega-bookstore somewhere in the greater South Bend area. Oldest Son asked me if I thought he should show up for this "interview." Though the circumstances were odd, I encouraged Oldest Son to go ahead.

I mean, if you have a website, you must be legit, right? (OK, never mind....)

Anyway, the guy did have a site, promoting a line of beauty, health and fitness products -- but you had to "register" to get past the front page. Neither Oldest Son nor I are that stupid.

Somehow, in this recital via cell phone, LSS heard "gas station," "vitamins" (which she translated as "drugs") and "interview." She concluded that Oldest Son was meeting a drug dealer at a gas station -- and when I walked in the door last night, she told me to call Oldest Son immediately.

This is what I found out when I called: Oldest Son went to the interview -- at the super-mega-bookstore, not at a gas station -- but the interviewer was as cryptic as he'd been while standing outside at the gas pumps: He didn't want to answer simple questions about the job, other than to say that this would give Oldest Son the opportunity to set up his "own small business." When Oldest Son asked if that meant he'd be expected to buy inventory and re-sell it, the interviewer said he would give Oldest Son more information about the job if Oldest Son would come back for another interview Thursday. Clearly, this individual isn't selling health food, he's selling sales jobs selling health food. Oldest Son has suddenly discovered that his homework schedule makes it impossible for him to attend a second interview -- ever.

This is how one generation can improve on the next. When I was a junior in college, I was offered a job selling Bibles in Arkansas, on the very buckle of the Bible Belt. Sort of like selling ice to Eskimos. But, unlike Oldest Son, I was so dazzled by the salesman's pitch at the very first interview that I actually said yes to the job -- and had to weasel out later. Sad, ain't it?

Speaking of trials... and juries...

The jury that convicted former Illinois Governor George Ryan and his pal Larry Warner here in Chicago recently seems itself on trial now as defense attorneys research the veracity of every statement made by every juror on their initial questionnaires (and presumably during voir dire as well).

It has been alleged that not all of the jurors were entirely truthful in what they told the court and counsel prior to their selection.

Imagine: A jury of liars deciding whether a politician has told the truth. Is that the definition of irony or what?

Not all the alleged misrepresentations are equally serious, nor is the materiality of many of these alleged misrepresentations immediately apparent. Some surely are both old and trivial. Nevertheless, the cumulative weight of these misstatements, omissions, and forgotten past encounters with the law may be enough to overturn the guilty verdicts. Maybe.

But here's the part that I don't get: Usually people lie to get out of jury service. Anyone who's picked a jury has encountered more than one man or woman who will say nearly anything to avoid being selected. In my most recent trial, a woman had already talked herself off the jury -- but, not being certain, continued to spin additional tales of woe about her small business out in the hallway as the judge was trying to tell her she could leave. The people who are now being attacked in the Ryan case apparently told fibs so they could serve for months.

There were no surprises for the Ryan jurors in terms of the time commitment that they were being asked to make; they knew they'd be tied up for months on this case. And yet they were willing to serve. They may have even fibbed, or stretched the truth, in an effort to secure this duty. I'm not sure what to make of this.

It was a splendid victory?

I was on trial last week. Not a big trial, not a high profile matter, not important, really, except to the parties and to the 14 people (12 jurors and two alternates) hailed in off the street to decide the controversy. It's nothing you'd ordinarily read about, even here in the blogosphere.

But it was a jury trial. And civil jury trials are rare beasts: Most civil cases settle or are otherwise disposed of before trial -- on the order of 99%. (Of course, when quoting those kinds of lop-sided statistics, I can't help but recall what a judge once told me about the pre-trial section he supervised: He had a 99.6% success rate, he told me, because 99.6% of the cases assigned to the "Fast Track" Pre-Trial Section were either settled, dismissed, or returned to the trial call. There will be a brief delay while you process that data.... Can you think of any other possible dispositions? So what the heck happened to the other .4%? I didn't have the heart to ask.)

Anyway, I've always liked being on trial. It certainly beats getting ready for trial all to heck: Before you start, you're trying to commit your entire case to memory, trying to anticipate every possible scenario, trying to avoid thinking about all of the million things that can go wrong. What if the witness gets lost on the way to the courthouse? What if the judge doesn't accept your argument on the admissibility of the key testimony or piece of evidence? What if you catch a cold?

I did catch a cold this past week -- spent Easter with bronchitis and on antibiotics. All from trying to get ready for trial and make it to baseball practice (to Youngest Son's eternal chagrin, I've been his coach for the past several years) and keep up with the other things that must be done in a solo law practice.

But when you're on trial, those things all go by the boards: You are immersed. You are committed. You are locked in. As I was this past week.

And for all this commitment, what was the result?

Well, it was what we call a Pyrrhic victory: The jury gave us something. It was therefore a victory -- but many more such victories and we are bankrupt. As I told the attorney who referred the case to me, we swung for the fences... and popped out to the second baseman.

I've long held the belief that trials only happen when someone is unreasonable; that's why they're so rare. It may be the party. It may be the attorney. It may sometimes be the judge. Of course, I'm working on an explanation as to why the rule doesn't apply in this case....

Update on Ring Day -- Or -- A demon has been exorcised?

We got the rings.

I had to leave the office at 10:15 and wait in the cold with my son at Gate 5 at "the Cell" -- I must have cut in front of 100 people behind him, but I had to get my ticket from him, didn't I?

When the gate finally opened, a loud cheer went up from the assembled throng, and we began surging forward. No one was trampled, and Oldest Son found a seam and started to pull away. I urged him to go on ahead alone; I'd get my ring if I could, but he was young and strong, and he should go move ahead if the crowd dynamic permitted. (I told him to start calling my cell phone if I hadn't caught up with him in an hour or two. Just in case I got trampled.)

Our seats were in the very last row of the upper deck, under the new canopy, in the shade, about two-thirds of the way down the left field line.

When the ballpark was first opened, the wind used to whip through the upper deck concourse at hurricane speeds, even if it that wasn't windy outside. There would be a wind-chill factor in July. The recent renovations have tamed the winds within, but they have to go somewhere, don't they?

Yesterday was a very windy day, and winds went around the stadium, accelerating along the way, and blowing right up our backs. I had was wearing Under Armour beneath a flannel shirt and a jacket. And I was still cold. And I kept waiting for my hat to blow off my head.

Young people are generally oblivious to the chill, but an hour before game time, Oldest Son said, "My feet are cold. This is a bad sign." (In the sunshine, people were wearing t-shirts and were comfortable. LSS told me the radio announcers were disputing the stated 47-degree temperature at game time; they thought it was more like 80°. They, too, were in the sun.)

So we're freezing. We're in seats that even Bob Uecker wouldn't confuse with "the front row." We're seemingly in danger of being swept by a gust of wind and hurled to our deaths from the still-steep upper deck at U.S. Cellular (though it does look much nicer now). But we got our rings. And for me it was a Löwenbräu moment.

The cultural reference may be too obscure for those who weren't paying attention to beer commercials 25 years ago. The jingle (and anyone happening upon this little essay may be grateful that I have not undertaken a study of how to make an audio post) went, "Here's to good friends/ Tonight is kind of special/ The beer we pour, must be something more, somehow.... Each commercial in the series was a little tear-jerker, about bonding, among friends, between family members.

Oldest Son had bought me a ticket to the ballgame. A circle closed somewhere.

And we had some time to talk. So I mentioned that the day had put me in mind of some of the ballpark giveaway days that I mentioned here in my last post -- the Bat Day, the Red Hat Day.

Oldest Son waited until I subsided and said, "That's not what I was thinking about."

"No? What?" said I.

"The baseball cards," he said.

How in the world does a kid remember that, 16 or 17 years later? He was four or five years old. How much does anyone remember from when they were four or five?

He remembered, and I've remembered more, too. When we were told that they were out of cards at the gate where we entered, we walked around to every other gate in the park. We went to an office. LSS remembered (when I told her this story) that she called the team to complain, and that she was told that cards would be mailed.

They never were.

This obviously left an impression. I thought that might be a subconscious motivation -- but I never dreamed it was still in active memory.

I'm so glad Oldest Son invited me yesterday. And I'm so glad we got the rings. Maybe we even healed the hurt feelings of a little kid, 16 or 17 years later.

Ring Day brings memories of other giveaway days

As I write these words, Oldest Son is behind the wheel of his roommate's car, trying to figure out how to navigate around the ubiquitous road construction that cuts Northern Indiana off from Chicago. His object: To arrive at U.S. Cellular Field (ne Comiskey Park) before 11:00 a.m. when the gates open on "Ring Day." Today the first 20,000 patrons admitted to the park will receive diamond-less replicas of the World Series rings. The actual rings will be awarded to the players during a pre-game ceremony.

He found tickets for the game on eBay, which shows some initiative. And he's asked me to go with him today, which is really something special for me.

On the way to work this morning, I couldn't help but think of another giveaway day at the ballpark -- not the Bat Day where Middle Son got his bat and immediately began swinging at about knee or shin-level of the fans crowded around him, although that was a memory, too.

No, I recalled a Card Day, many years ago. Oldest Son learned to write by copying line-ups out of the newspaper. He had memorized rosters at an age when other kids were struggling to spell their own names. And he loved baseball cards.

My memory puts this at the old park, which means before 1991, which means Oldest Son could not have been more than five. We got to the park early that day -- but not early enough. We didn't get any cards.

I don't recall exactly what happened. I just remember the kid's overwhelming disappointment. We may even have gotten cards from someone before the day was out. I know something like that happened a few years later, on a Red Hat day at the new ballpark: Cleveland was in town then, too, and this was in the days when Jacob Field was newly opened and always sold out. So a lot of Cleveland fans came to Chicago -- and a couple of them took pity on my boys and gave them their hats. Which wouldn't have gone over in Cleveland anyway.

Maybe today we will be in time for souvenir rings. I hope so.

Yes, Virginia, the White Sox really did win the World Series last year

I was at the opener last night, until about 30 or 40 minutes after the rains came and it became obvious that the game was not going to get re-started anytime soon.

I wasn't there on my own nickel of course; with three kids in college I no longer possess that kind of discretionary income. Or any other kind, for that matter.

But I was there, wondering how I could be at a Sox-Indians game and cheering for Jim Thome. The world changes.

The banner ceremony was moving -- some thought too slow-moving, I've since heard, but I was not one of these. I was trying to keep from choking up during the deluge of images. Part of this is because my father lived his whole life without seeing the White Sox win a World Series -- and to see them play in exactly one. He probably didn't mind as much as I did.

Eight Men Out was on the cable the other night, and I was protesting to LSS and Youngest Son that they shouldn't be watching such a sad movie. LSS pointed out, not unreasonably I suppose, that the movie isn't as sad anymore, not since the Sox won the Series. But I complained to keep from crying: Maybe it's because my father's cousin-in-law once was given a glove by Buck Weaver. Maybe not.

Maybe it's because, as I get older, I choke up at the strangest things. Emotions well up unbidden and barely controlled. I worry that I'll someday be a seventy-something who cries every time the Sun goes behind the clouds. Or comes back out.

But I don't think that's a sufficient explanation. I think there's something about the connection I forged with the White Sox, as a child, listening to Bob Elson late at night -- late at night for me, as a little kid -- it's a totally one-sided love affair, of course. Back when I did have disposable income, we had weekend season tickets at the old park. Beautiful seats, too: First row above the walkway, last section of the Golden Boxes, just about even with third base. If the game was terrible, we could watch the parade of people wandering past. If the game was good, we could see the whole game.

Then 1991 came and we got moved to "equivalent" seats in the new ballpark -- deep in the right field corner (section 110) with no view of right field and just a couple hundred feet further from the action. See what I mean about one-sided? But they weren't bad seats, they were just nowhere near as good. And it was baseball. I could tell story after story about the ballpark (old and new) and how it figured in at important moments of my life.

Last year, I held back a bit, trying not to get too wrapped up in the pennant chase and the World Series because, as a life-long Chicagoan, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For some disaster to happen. For some routine grounder to get booted. Even when they won, when LSS clipped and saved every front page (some of which are framed in our home now), even when the victory parade went up LaSalle Street, some part of me didn't entirely believe it had really happened.

But last night, I couldn't help but give in -- and believe. I looked up, not just at the scoreboard, but at the furthest corners of the park, the seats that are never filled, even during a supposedly sold-out game. They were filled last night. "And," my host reminded me, when I pointed it out to him, "they're happy to be there."

And they were there early, too. The Sox gave out 20,000 tube socks to the first 20,000 through the gates. My host and I arrived an hour before the scheduled 7:00 p.m. game time. We didn't get socks. At least we got magnetic schedules: Some traditions remain.

Two jets flew over the park after the National Anthem. I believe they flew directly over my left shoulder. I won't say they were flying low, but I thought I could feel the exhaust -- and the pilot of one of the planes needed a shave.

So the Sox actually won the World Series. I'm certain of it now. And they won the opener, eventually, last night or this morning as you prefer, somewhere around 1:00 a.m, while I was dozing on the couch back at home. (And it may be a good thing, too, that there was a three hour rain delay: I got thoroughly wetted on my journey home, which I think made LSS and the kids less jealous of my good fortune in getting to go in the first place.)

The NCAA Tournament Ended Last Night

At least for me. And I'll bet it ended for lots of other people too when LSU beat Duke. My brackets were shredded by the upset wins of George Mason and Bradley (Bradley beat one of my Final Four) -- but no one predicted those wins so all of us ameteur 'bracketologists' were in the same leaky boat.

But Duke -- well, Duke always seems to have a good tournament run. So I always pick Duke to go far. In fact, when Youngest Son was printing out the brackets at home, he aksed, "Dad, do you want to fill out a bracket this year, or should I just write down Duke as your champion?" This may have been followed by a little rim shot.

Everyone in our house is a comedian.

The Journey of the Shoes -- Or -- Maybe We Should Just Bag the Whole Thing

I had completed my morning ablutions and was perched at the edge of the bed, warily eyeing the sock in my hand.

Now I realize that for some people, perhaps even most people, putting on one's socks is not an arduous task. For me, however, it amounts to strenuous exercise -- what with the bending and all. (It's enough to make me wonder, sometimes, if perhaps I should get more into shape.) I was therefore fully engaged in this endeavor when I heard Long Suffering Spouse come back into the house.

LSS had just dropped off Younger Daughter at the home of the girl with whom she carpools to Orchestra class, four days a week. We take turns running this shuttle, one week on, one week off. During the off weeks, like this one, I have more time to stress about putting on my socks.

LSS does not drop Younger Daughter off at the girl's actual home, not ordinarily. By the time Younger Daughter finally arrives in the morning, her car pool companion and the girl's father are in their car, at the end of their street, ready to turn onto Talcott and race like the wind to the North Shore. Orchestra class meets at 7:00 a.m.

Younger Daughter's habitual tardiness is a source of continuing stress for LSS, and this morning had been no exception. Like most teenage girls, apparently, Younger Daughter prefers extended stays in the bathroom, requiring another half hour to select her clothes and dress herself beyond that. (I wonder sometimes how much worse it might be if Younger Daughter attended a school which didn't require uniforms.) During the weeks that I'm not driving, LSS must shower, dress and hector Younger Daughter about why she still isn't downstairs -- all within that last half hour. This sort of routine can cast a pall on the rest of the morning.

But this morning was exceptionally bad; I could tell that from the way LSS slammed the front door. Younger Daughter must have done something out of the ordinary, I thought.

As if on cue, LSS called up the stairs, "Do you know what she did?"

Now I could have answered, in all honesty, that I had not seen Younger Daughter that morning; that I was busily engaged in my morning sock ceremony; and that it would therefore have been impossible for me to ascertain what Younger Daughter had done.

That would have been a mistake.

So I carefully answered: "No. What happened?"

"She left her soccer shoes here! Doesn't she have a game today? What is the matter with her? She can't play without shoes!"

These remarks may have gone on a bit longer than this, and they may have become repetitive, but LSS was letting off steam. She built to her conclusion: "And I'm not bringing them to her!"

In the minutes that followed, I learned that Younger Daughter had fussed and fidgeted even more than usual this morning. She no doubt made more than one trip out to the car in the driveway, going back inside to pick up this or that, maybe her lunch, maybe something else. Younger Daughter did have her first JV soccer game yesterday; she may have been excited about that. She was definitely not excited about the prospect of 7:00 a.m. Orchestra, or about carpooling. She feels that the other girl's waiting at the end of the street rather rubs it in about Younger Daughter's tardiness, without conferring any significant advantage in terms of arriving more promptly at the school. This has never motivated Younger Daughter to be ready on time, however.

This morning Younger Daughter had a bag for books, another bag for her uniform skirt (why she couldn't wear it, even over the lounge pants that the girls favor, is not something I presume to understand), perhaps another bag for lunch. There were, according to LSS, five million bags in all. This may have been a slight exaggeration. But the point was that, however many bags there may have been, Younger Daughter's soccer shoes were in none of them.

These were brand new shoes. We'd just bought them Sunday, after LSS realized that Younger Daughter -- who was complaining that her feet hurt -- was wearing the soccer shoes she'd worn (and worn out) in 8th grade, two years before.

"And I'm not going to bring them to her," LSS told me again. "I can't go now; I have to be at school." (LSS teaches at the grammar school that all of my children attended, and which Youngest Son still attends.) "And by the time school's out, it'll be too late."

LSS was not hinting for me to do anything. On the contrary, she expressed the fond hope that this failure to bring shoes would cause Younger Daughter to be benched (probable) and would awaken Younger Daughter to the need to become better organized (in my opinion, not likely).

I did, however, volunteer to deliver the shoes. It was a sunny morning, and I could take Sheridan Road and Lake Shore Drive into the city. I don't do that very often, and it is a beautiful drive. If I could get to the parking garage before 9:00 a.m., this little detour would only cost me $14.50 -- the difference between the price of taking the train and the price to park, plus the cost of whatever gasoline I burned in the 22 year old car available for my use.

"And she wanted a Gatorade, too," LSS told me, adding more detail to the morning's confrontation. "She finally gets in the car and the she asks if she can get a Gatorade. I said 'fine' and she said forget about it. So we left."

And LSS was still bothered by the 5,000,000 little bags: "If she had everything in one bag, like the boys do for sports, then she wouldn't forget things." So we found a bag, one of the bags we'd used for our recent Arizona trip. In went the shoes and the Gatorade, and out the door went I.

The delivery was accomplished without incident. At Younger Daughter's all-girl school they are wary of male visitors. The custodian eyed me suspiciously as I walked in the front door, not relaxing until I headed directly to the office. The bag was taken in with the understanding that it would not be delivered to Younger Daughter until after school. This seemed fine with me: If Younger Daughter realized what she'd forgotten during the course of the day, she could sweat it out until the end -- some stimulus for behavior modification in future -- and still allowing her to play in today's game. But, what with the time expended in identifying the right bag to bring and all, I didn't make it downtown before 9:00 a.m., and had to pay the full $25 to park.

But that's not the punchline. No, the punchline concerns the bag: Last night, when LSS picked Younger Daughter up from the game, the bag was nowhere in evidence. LSS inquired about the bag and received a typical teenage nonresponsive response -- on the order of, "I've got it, don't worry about it."

Well, this morning the bag was still nowhere to be seen. And LSS, while driving Younger Daughter to the other girl's house, inquired specifically -- and found that the bag that was supposed to help Younger Daughter get more organized is languishing in her locker at school.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed this morning, holding a sock and preparing myself for the struggle to put it on, when LSS came home....

Writing, writing every day

That is my firm resolve. At present, at least. How long it will last -- well, time will tell.

I've already realized that some days I will not be able to write here. Yesterday, I didn't write here because I used my self-allotted writing time to compose an essay for the State Bar bulletin board (an essay which, despite the time and care lavished on its composition, received no comments, favorable or otherwise).

(So -- he said in a self-pitying tone -- it was sort of like writing here....)

And, of course, there were a couple of days last week where all I wrote were checks. At least that makes some people happy.

But today I will focus on writing something that may bring in a dollar or two. Which means, unfortunately, I must sign off here.

Getting back to normal

Or as normal as it gets for us.

I made it into the office yesterday for awhile -- not earthshaking news, by any standard, but a healthy development, I hope, inasmuch as the bills will be coming due soon for our Arizona adventure.

And the office is taking shape as well. The carpet's been replaced in my office -- but my worst fears were realized: I did have to move again.

The carpet people showed up at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, March 3. They were expected. But they did not expect the size and scope of the project they'd been sent to undertake. They understood that they'd be replacing the carpet in the hallway outside my office. They'd not been briefed on the giant Rorschach blot on my office carpet.

But that was fair, because it came as a complete (and wholly unwelcome) surprise to me that I'd have to move out of my office right then. The hope that I'd clung to, that they'd first try a patch, was quickly and thouroughly crushed.

The people from the building sent up a number of men to assist in the panic clean-up -- but the weeks I'd spent agonizing on where to put things to minimize losses when moving in were compressed into minutes. And I did lose things, but so far nothing too serious. That was part of yesterday's exercise: Just being around my stuff again, organizing.

Fat chance that'll ever get done. But we must try....

Excused Absence -- Or -- How We Brought Rain to Phoenix

I've been "away from this microphone," as Paul Harvey would say, for some time now, but not, unfortunately, on a lucrative speaking engagement.

The good people of Phoenix had gone over 140 days without rain. Someone had to do something about this.

And so the Curmudgeon and his Long Suffering Spouse, Younger Daughter and Youngest Son in tow, followed Middle Son on his Spring Training trip to Arizona -- and pretty much ruined it.

But from what I saw in the TV coverage, the people of Phoenix were happy, even downright giddy about the rain that washed out last Saturday's doubleheader and the snow that fell so close to the City.

You'd think, for the benefit we conferred, the nice people of Phoenix might have at least 'comped' our trip -- but, no, we'll have to figure out some way to pay for it ourselves. Somehow.

Now I can understand a certain amount of skepticism in reviewing this post; perhaps the reader doubts that our mere presence in Arizona could bring much needed rain. And perhaps I overstate my claim: It was not our presence alone that brought rain; it was our being there on vacation.

And it's not as if we did it on purpose. If we had known the consequences of our visit, I surely would have brought a coat, or at least a long-sleeved shirt -- but I didn't. The hotel had only an outdoor pool -- and the temperature never climbed above 50 from Thursday on. I did have a tweed jacket, with leather patches on the sleeves. I like to wear a suit or sportcoat in the airport -- the additional available pockets make security a little less difficult. (I like to wear tweed jackets with leather patches on the sleeves because this can sometimes deceive people, for at least a little while, until I open my big bazoo anyway, that I am somewhat smart.) And I wore that and a sweatshirt I wasn't going to pack but for the insistence of the LSS, while locals wore parkas -- parkas! -- to the March 8 WBC game between Mexico and South Africa. And that was the warmest night of our stay.

(And why was I at a World Baseball Classic game between Mexico and South Africa? I was there because Youngest Son, whom I've renamed Bud Selig, Jr., has been obsessing about this tournament since it was announced. I had not been looking forward to this game in any way. And, despite my reservations going in, the game turned out to be a hoot because the Mexican fans were so raucous -- and still friendly to me and my son.)

Still, we saw parts of two White Sox games (we were late to both), and two games involving Middle Son's team. (We froze at both of them.) But did we see Middle Son play?

We arrived Wednesday. He pitched Tuesday. He might have pitched again on Saturday, but for the rain.

Still, the reader may not be persuaded just by the foregoing series of miscues, misjudgments and misfortunes that our mere presence as vacationers would have caused cold weather or rain in the usually warm and sunny desert. Well consider this: We flew home last Sunday night -- into the teeth of another storm, one that closed O'Hare. We were diverted to Milwaukee, not making it into Chicago until after 2:30 a.m., not making it home until 4:00 a.m.

It's just got to be us.

Set the Wayback Machine for 1982 -- Vacation Story I

Yes, this is about the honeymoon.

No, it won't be that kind of story. (There are plenty of those kinds of stories out there elsewhere in the blogosphere.)

The first thing you have to know is that the tradition of June weddings got started because May was unavailable.

May is the month for bowling banquets.

Snicker if you will, but banquet hall owners would much rather book a bowling banquet than a wedding. The bowling banquet may come back next year. The bride and groom? Maybe in 25 years, if it lasts -- and if it doesn't, chances are they'll take their trade elsewhere for their next weddings.

I don't expect you to know all this inside stuff about the banquet industry; I didn't know it until my then-fiancee and I had to reschedule our June wedding to May.

We had to reschedule because my intended's sister was going to have her still recent vows solemnized at her husband's home church on the distant isle of Cyprus. My intended and I were expected to attend, of course; indeed, the passage was to be our wedding present from the prospective sister-in-law and her new husband. This was a fabulous opportunity, obviously, and we were looking forward to it eagerly.

There was just one small hitch: We would not yet be hitched at the time of the trip -- the Cyprus ceremony was a couple of weeks before our chosen date. My prospective mother-in-law was beside herself at the prospect of her daughter traipsing across Europe with me -- and without the benefit of clergy.

This was a source of great pre-marital stress, and there was only one solution. I don't think it took me more than a couple of weeks to think of it: We'd just move our date up.

Silly, naive boy.

That's when I found out about bowling banquets -- but we finally found a place on Milwaukee Avenue that could fit us in, if we would do a morning wedding, and so long as we were gone by 5:00 -- so they could clean up for the bowling banquet that night.

We got married the day before Mother's Day. Another piece of advice for you brides and bridegrooms: The day before Mother's Day is not the best day for a wedding. First, the price of flowers will kill you. Second, your friends and relatives will make all sorts of obvious jokes. (Tell me you didn't think of a couple just now yourself.....)

And there was still another reason to avoid Mother's Day, as we found out in the wee small hours of the following morning, waiting in the longest line ever seen in an airport before 9/11, with all the campesinos waiting for the flight to Mexico City. The line was so long because all the passengers (except us) were bringing large consumer goods home to their mothers -- washers, dryers, refrigerators, TV's.

You may be suspecting a continuity error at this point, unless your ignorance of geography allows you to think that Mexico City might be the first stop on the Road to Cyprus.

But we're still waiting for that trip to Cyprus. Thus, if I pick up the thread of this narrative in future posts, it would be to describe the honeymoon in Mexico....

Competing with the Griswolds

Middle Son leaves tomorrow for Arizona and Spring Training. His Spring Training -- which sounds so cool, to me anyway, that I can't help boring people with the repetition of it. Yes, it's only a Division III college team; yes, he's only a freshman; yes, he's not likely to be more than a spot starter this season, and even that expectation may be more a reflection of my paternal optimism than of the coach's plan. But still: it's baseball, college baseball.

I am a couch potato. So to see my children succeed in sports is simply amazing for me. And it's not just Middle Son who's succeeded in baseball, either: I was thrilled when Oldest Son made the high school team. I was bustin' buttons proud that Oldest Son lettered twice. I wasn't disappointed that he chose to 'retire' after high school -- but I thought he could have played football or baseball, and maybe both, at a Division III school. I thought he might have parlayed that into graduate school, and a graduate assistant's job, at a big-time football school -- maybe even a coaching career. But he decided that he'd rather go to the University of Our Lady in South Bend. That was the challenge he wanted -- and he was not going to play either sport there. Except for dorm football -- but that's a different post.

This post is about Middle Son's Arizona trip -- and the fact that we will follow him down next week. This will be the first time that my wife will take an airplane trip in 24 years -- since our honeymoon. It will be Youngest Son's first airplane trip.

We've taken a few vacations as a family, but with five kids flying was out of the question -- unless you can charter a flight. So we drove to various places -- sort of a real life Griswold family. We're able to fly this year because Older Daughter and Oldest Son are both staying at their respective schools. And even though I had to buy Middle Son's ticket (of course) I have persuaded myself that I'm really only buying four airplane tickets. Self-deception can be a useful thing.

Anyway, a theme begins to take shape: I expect that future posts will share some of our vacation stories -- as I remember them, anyway. I don't pretend to have total recall -- I don't want to get in trouble with Oprah like James Frey did. She'd cut me into a million little pieces. (I guess that one's been used a few times, eh?)

In the meantime, I must now turn my attention, and the rudimentary HTML skills I have acquired in the production of this blog, to my real life web sites -- you know, the ones that may make get me some paying clients some day.

"Remember man that thou art dust...

... and unto dust thou shalt return." That's one of the standard warnings of Ash Wednesday and it was pretty close to the words spoken by the Franciscan who dirtied my forehead this morning at St. Peter's in the Loop.

It's just what I need: Another reminder of my onrushing mortality.

Sunday night I was watching the news with Younger Daughter and Middle Son. There was a story during the show about the Hustle up the Hancock, a charity race up the stairs inside Chicago's John Hancock Building -- 100 floors, give or take.

Younger Daughter speculated that she might be able to get most of the way up the stairs, not running perhaps, at least not after the first 10 floors or so. Middle Son, the baseball player, said he could do it with no problem.

I challenged him. I have a hard time believing that anyone could undertake such a climb, much less that anyone I know. He gave me that pitying look that teenagers give: "Dad, I run stairs all the time in practice."

I said I could barely make it from the couch each night up the stairs to my bedroom. And Middle Son and Younger Daughter both laughed. (That Dad, he exaggerates so!)

But I had to climb two flights of stairs to get out the Wells Street exit at the CTA Clark & Lake Station recently. By the middle of the second flight, my legs were lead and my vision blurred. (OK, blurrier than usual.)

Some days I'm dustier than others.

It's "Fat Tuesday"

Big deal.

For the Curmudgeon, every day is fat... as sadly illustrated by this morning's vignette.

I was 10 minutes late for a dentist's appointment. I'm only about a mile away from the dentist's office, but a traffic accident on the outbound Kennedy filled all of the adjacent streets with cars looking for the mythical "alternate route" -- as I did not find out until I attempted to drive over.

I'd been to see the dentist just a couple of weeks ago, to replace an old cavity that had failed after many years of diligent service. (You need not observe a moment of silence.) At that time we had discussed this morning's adventure, another cavity filling, but one so minor, the dentist said, that anesthetic might be unnecessary.

My tardiness this morning decided the matter: There was no time for Novocaine.

"Let me know if this hurts you," said the dentist.

"Don't worry," I answered, "if it hurts I'll scream like a banshee."

The dentist turned to his assistant: "Close the door," he said. "We don't want to lose the morning patients."

Despite this inauspicious beginning, the cavity filling proceeded without incident. The dentist may have revved the drill a bit more than necessary. With a tad too much enthusiasm. And the dentist's chuckle may have been a half-tone too dark, more an evil cackle than a kindly chuckle. But I endured, and the worst was soon over. Or so I thought.

But then came the most unkindest cut of all: "You're all set," he said, "but don't eat anything for about 40 minutes."

Sizing me up (and the pun is intended), he must have felt this would be a challenge for me.

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It may be Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but in Chicago, it's "Paczki Day."

I probably heard vague references to "poonchki" (the standard pronunciation of "paczki") for years, but I never realized what a big deal it is in the Polish community until I was running for judge the first time.

I was up early every morning during that futile effort, passing out my propaganda on any street corner or bus stop or train station that I could. On Fat Tuesday I was near a Polish bakery -- and I was duly impressed by the long lines of pastry aficionados. I may be slow on the uptake on many things, but when it comes to baked goods, I make it my business to become well informed.

Are my 40 minutes up yet?