Name of the game: TV or not TV?

I know that very few of you have covered a major football game from the sidelines--or even covered one at all--so I'm going to share part of my experience at the state high school finals last Friday with you.

Loyal readers already know about some of my sideline experiences during regular season games (where you can go as close to the sidelines as you dare), and during the playoffs at the dome in Marquette (where you have to stay behind the yellow line, well from the sidelines). At Ford Field and the state finals, you add one more factor: live TV.

The game was televised around Michigan. Unlike every other game, where there is just a TV cameraman here or there and a few still photographers, TV changes the game around. TV time-outs, for one thing. And the process of presenting the game to all those fans who have the game on at home.

One special accommodation made to TV is that they can stand INSIDE the sacred yellow line. There is another line, maybe two feet closer than the yellow, where they are allowed to roam. That's because ... well, they're TV. They're special!

And there's a bunch of other things. This year, I thought I would document some of them.

The first thing is cords. They're a fact of life at a game like this. There are cords all over. After a play, I always have to make notes in my notebook about what happened. The TV crews don't. They're moving on to their next position. So you often have to step over moving cords or play jumprope while trying to write. Here's a typical camera crew:

You see a guy with the camera, a guy holding a sound dish and a guy holding coils and coils of cord. Besides all the other cord lying all over the place.

You can also see the sacred yellow line and the white line inside it. Looks like three feet closer, now that I see it again.

Of course, there is also a sideline reporter, who gives her (it's nearly always a she) live report on what is happening around the team bench. Here's one in action, near our team:

FWIW, I don't have any problem with that. I'm doing my job along the sideline, and she is doing hers. With her entourage. It would be nice to have an entourage someday. Or an assistant or go-for of some kind, who can run to my camera bag when my camera shows the weak battery icon.

You are now about to see my own feet, on the yellow line. As long as you stay on this side of the yellow line, everyone is happy. Step over and die.


During halftime, I took a close-up of the turf ...

It's called FieldTurf, and it resembles real grass much more closely than other kinds of phony grass (such as in Marquette). The little plastic blades are maybe a half inch long.

Now, when you're watching a sporting event on TV, here is a shot you may see from time to time (taken from the replay screen) ...


Ever wonder how they get those shots? This next picture may explain ...


However, of all the strange and bizarre sights I see along the sidelines at the state finals, this one is by far the strangest ...


It's a sideline camera on a motorized dolly that roams back and forth during the game, blocking spectators' view and getting in the way of everyone else.

Talk about an entourage! This one has five, including the cord handlers--it eats electricity from the outlets along the field, and a couple guys walk alongside to keep the cords from tangling.

This thing roams back and forth during the game (as it is doing here), following the action. Get out of my way! It even has a horn to warn those who are trying to do their job to move over or die. The horn sounds like it would belong on a moped--sort of thin and high-pitched.

It's fun to cover the state finals. Sort of. But when all is said and done, the days of roaming along the sideline outdoors, in fall, in natural weather, on a natural grass field, are much more enjoyable to me.

Well, the season is finally over. I only have to wait nine months until I can do this again ...


Ahh! That's more like it!

Back home again

Hi. I'm back from my big long trip to the state football finals. I've mostly caught up with blog alerts, so I'll write a few words here.

Our team lost 34-13. This was the third consecutive year they reached the state finals in Detroit--but also the third consecutive year they wound up as state runnersup. They should have a strong team again next year, so who knows? I may well be down there again next Thanksgiving.

Amazingly, for a drive that long at this time of year, I didn't have to deal with snow. I didn't even see one flake in about 1,100 total miles of driving! My younger son, David, went with me, but my wife stayed at home due to her new job. We visited my son on Thanksgiving Day and went to a nice buffet-style dinner north of town. I called my wife during the day, and she got to talk to everyone. I also called my mom. Maybe I mentioned that before.

The game started at 9 a.m. Central Time on Friday. I left Detroit (downtown) at 1:30 and got back home about midnight Friday night. Saturday was spent taking care of this and that at home, shopping and bonding again with my wife. We both needed to do some bonding.

So last night, she and I cuddled up on the couch and watched a movie--"Big Bad Mama," from 1974, featuring Angie Dickinson. Let's see: Think of it as Bonnie and Clyde, except our protagonists are a mother (Angie) and her two daughters. Throw in William Shatner and plenty of sex and nudity. And it wasn't based on historical events. Anyway, my wife enjoyed it VERY much. After that we went upstairs to bed--and had a great time ... and both slept very well. I like Saturday nights like that.

This morning, it was back to the office and the keyboard. In the afternoon, I sat to watch some football, she sat next to me, wrapped a quilt around us, put her head on my shoulder and soon was sleeping. Normal Sunday afternoon.

Weather was nice and mild all last week, but the cold weather will be back in a few days. We're getting rain first, and then temperatures will be back down in the 20s late in the week. Winter sports will start as soon as December does: I've got a wrestling tournament on Saturday, and the boys basketball season starts a week from Tuesday. Time marches on.

Anyway, I got some photos from my trip that I'll post later. A few from the game (my experiences) and some shots of Comerica Park, located next to Ford Field, the site of the football game. If you like tigers, you'll want to see them. (Once I get them posted.)

Half past Thanksgiving

Over on the left there, WomanOfFeathers2 sent me a graphic of a pilgrim woman with a pumpkin pie. Many thanks, WOF2! That may be as close to a pumpkin pie as I get today. It's Thanksgiving on the road for the third straight year.

I am writing this from my son's apartment in a north Detroit suburb. We're watching the Lions and Dolphins battling against each other. By this time tomorrow, my state finals game will be over, and we'll be probably be back on I-75, for the long drive home.

The trip down there was interesting. We left at 8 a.m. Wednesday, and all was fine until about 1 p.m., when we were nearing St. Ignace and the Mackinac Bridge, which connects Michigan's two peninsulas.

Now usually when I make a late fall trip to Detroit or thereabouts, the weather is cloudy and gray and even snowy (especially south of the bridge). Not this time. The sun was out. The low angle sun of fall. I was getting some of that through the side window. Also, the sun was being reflected off the waters of Lake Michigan, and I was getting that through the side window.

The bottom line: tons of glare for the driver to deal with. It burned my eyes, and gave me a headache. But we got to the bridge, and I took a photo of it ...


"The bridge" is the Mackinac Bridge, which is about five miles long and was built in 1957. Until then, you got from one peninsula to the other via ferry, over waters that can get pretty choppy.

We stopped for lunch just south of the bridge, where I took some Tylenols and tried to rest my eyes. But the burning feeling never really went away until after the sun set. We eventually got to the motel (in Flint) and stayed there Wednesday night. It's a Red Roof Inn. (Yeah, we go first class.) By the way, the motel says it has internet access. And they do. But it's the kind of internet access where you have to send your credit card info to T-Mobile. No thank you!

On Thanksgiving morning, we drove down to my older son's place, and that brings you up to date. Of course, as soon as we arrived, both sons got to doing what they like to do: videogames ...

That's David seated and Phil looking over his shoulder. I sent a copy of this photo home to Mom, and I'll call her in a little while.

It's getting close to halftime, and Phil's going out during the break in the action to get something at McDonald's. I've got my doubts that he'll find one open, but he says the one he's going to is open 24 hours. We'll see. Later this afternoon, we're going to a place where a Thanksgiving dinner is being served. So maybe I'll get some pumpkin pie after all.

That's it for now. Once I get home, I'll have tons of writing (and unwinding) to do, so I won't be able to complete the story until early next week.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. To you Canadians, sorry this is over a month late. By the way, we're not crossing over to Windsor, Ontario, today. Too much hassle, says my son, what with customs and all. And the exchange rate is not favorable to the American dollar, which is a lot weaker than it was just a few years ago. Well, we all know why.

Turkey on the road

had been looking forward to a traditional Thanksgiving this week. Sleep late. Watch some football. Enjoy a big, tasty meal. Enjoy time with the family and maybe visit my mom. Relax and enjoy taking it easy for once.

Well, I'll get to see some football, anyway.

Last Saturday, the football team I cover won its state semifinal game, so on Wednesday morning, I'll be leaving for the 520-mile drive to Detroit and the state finals at Ford Field. It's the third straight Thanksgiving I'll be spending away from home.

Yes, it's getting old. After 2004 and '05, I was really looking forward to a quiet Turkey Day. Especially with my mom in the nursing home--I wanted to spend part of the day with her.

As of mid October, our team didn't seem likely to go very far in the playoffs. But lo and behold, they came together and now have four straight playoff wins including victories over two teams that had been undefeated. Their seasons ended. Ours goes on.

This time my wife is staying home, due to her new job. But my younger son is leaning towards coming along. After all, his big brother lives down there, and we'll spend a lot of time with him on Thanksgiving--no doubt his video games will get a workout. In the last two years, we marked the big day by crossing over to Canada (Windsor), where the stores and restaurants are open on the U.S. Thanksgiving. (It's just an ordinary Thursday over there--Canada's Thanksgiving is on a Monday in October.)

The game kicks at 9 a.m. (our time; 10 a.m. in Detroit) on Friday. After it ends and I get a few interviews, it's back on the road for the 11-hour drive home. At least the weather is forecast to be nice. We're supposed to be in the low 50s this week (!!!), and they're forecasting the mid 50s down there.

Temperatures have been close to normal lately--and since October was so cold, that's nice. We haven't seen any significant snow since that storm in mid October. The only snow around now is in shaded areas, and even that may be gone after it warms up.

I really wanted to stay home this year. You know I did. But ... oh well! A few weeks back, I realized that I could well be spending still another Turkey Day far from home, so I've had time to resign myself to it.

At least I'll take my camera along, so I'll look for some unusual sights along the way. You could predict that, right?

***

I've got a few other things to write about, but my wife said she wanted to watch something with me tonight, and I've got something like 34 (at the moment) blog alerts I need to catch up with. She's still upstairs on the big computer, so ...

One is that we (my wife and I) have a big project ahead of us--clearing out my mom's house. She hasn't lived there for 14 months now, and the neighbor (a good friend of my mom) wants to buy it so her daughter and son-in-law can move in.

When I visited my mom last week, I brought up the topic, and she said it would be OK. "Like keeping it in the family," she said. (The last time I brought up the idea of selling the house, she got all emotional, and a serious discussion wasn't possible. Now she knows that she can't move back home.)

My mom and dad moved into the house about 1977, and while it isn't a big house, they have a lot of stuff in there that we have to dispose of one way or another, plus lots of stuff to simply sort through. Anybody out there interested in an organ? A John Deere riding mower? A mechanic's tool set? A pool table? Those are among the larger items there. None of which we can use or even have space for. FYI, my dad died in 1994.

This is, of course, something I have no experience with. And with work the way it is for me during fall and winter, we won't be able to spend a lot of time there (50 miles from our home) until next spring. I told the neighbor they wouldn't be able to take over the house until next summer at the earliest. She said that's OK.

The other thing is that I've fallen in love. Really.

It happened last Saturday, after the game. We had gone to the Target store in Marquette to look for some blouses and socks and other stuff for my wife. I went to the entertainment department as usual. And there it was.

I'm planning to get a new digital camera, and I've made up a short list of candidates. At the store, there was the top candidate. The first time I've had a chance to see it in person. While it didn't have a film card, there were batteries inside, so I was able to play with it a little. Nice.

It's a Canon Powershot S3 IS. A small digital with a big zoom. Make no mistake: I'd absolutely love to get a digital SLR. But they simply cost too much for me. I have to set my sights a little lower. I've been reading a lot of reviews of cameras, and the Canon is one of the final candidates.

But since that model came out about a year or so ago, I'm suspecting that a new version of the camera will come out this spring. So, for the time being, I'm going to wait. I'll be taking more looks at the Sony and Panasonic/Lumix models, too. There's a little time before I make the decision.

As long as I can remember, I've used Minolta cameras. Even way back when I got my first film SLR. The cameras I use now (both the work camera and my own camera) are Minoltas. Then Minolta merged with Konica, and it was rebranded "Konica Minolta." And earlier this year, much to my shock, Konica Minolta announced it was getting out of the camera business entirely. So I feel totally absolved of any brand loyalty.

***

My wife must have gotten mixed up with the solitaire game again. She finally came down, and we watched an episode of Stargate SG-1. No time for a movie with her new, earlier bedtime.

Now: time to start working down those blog alerts.

There and back again

Hi, folks. It's been another crazy week.

Last Saturday, we went to the Superior Dome in Marquette for the regional football championship game. The team that I cover won again, so they will be returning to Marquette this Saturday for the state semifinals.

Just thought I'd show you a shot or two I took inside the dome. (It was night when we got up there--this week's game is during the day.)

As you see, it is made of wood. It fact, it's the world's largest wooden dome (For more about the Superior Dome and a look at the exterior, look at its Wikipedia entry.)



The acoustics inside are weird. I've been to track meets there, and sometimes you can be about 30 feet from the starter's pistol and it sounds very distant. Then, you can be on the other side of the floor, and the gun makes you jump. Here's another shot.



One thing I don't enjoy about covering football games at the dome is the arena staff, who must be from the law enforcement academy or something. They keep all us news photographers about 12 feet from the sidelines--behind a broken white line. But I'm trying both to take notes on the action and get pictures at the same time, and it sure makes it difficult--especially since light from a flash disperses over distance.

For example, this shot was taken during a crucial fourth down play in last Saturday's game. Here's how I got to see it ...

Great seats, eh, buddy? Maybe I should take along a helmet, shirt and shoulder pads next time.

Now ... this Saturday's game is the state semifinals. If they win that one, they go on to the state finals, which would be played Thanksgiving Friday (Nov. 24) at 9 a.m. (our time) at Ford Field in Detroit. It would be the third consecutive Thanksgiving when I am far from home, covering the football finals. True, I'll get to visit my older son (in fact, I'd be staying with him), but just the same, I'd rather have Thanksgiving Day at home. For once.

I mean, been there, done that. I've gone down to the state finals several times. Contrary to what you may think, covering those games is just not as much fun as covering the regular season games, where you can be right on the sidelines, feel the wind, the rain and the snow, and you walk around on real green grass. Or mud. (But the mud is real, so that's OK.) Shirtsleeve weather for football is OK--if it's August or September.

I've got girls basketball district tournament games Wednesday night and (probably) Friday night and a meeting on Thursday. Fortunately, this one isn't as long as the football meeting.

One other MAJOR piece of GOOD news. My wife got a job.

She's starting at a call center that opened in town here just recently. She started training today. She'll be working just about full-time through the holidays. After that, it will slow down, but it's a national company with other big, national clients.

Jobs are very hard to find here. Small town, not much economic life. Rural area in the woods. Far from "civilization." Heck, there are 13,000 people in the entire county, and most are elderly. It's been an employer's market.

My wife had been out of work for about a year, after the motel where she worked closed due to the owner's illness. (She died over the summer, and the place is closed.) So we've been living on my paycheck ever since, and my job doesn't pay well. Plus, we had our health insurance cut back earlier this year, so I've got a lot of medical bills that need to be paid.

If she can hang on there, this will be a very good thing. We're going to have to scramble at times, especially since we just have one car, but where there's a will, etc. We both want to make it work, and that's the main thing.

Frozen memories defrosted

OK, folks, gather around. I want to tell you about one of the most memorable experiences of my life. A night I certainly will never forget. And if it ever happened to you, I'm sure you would never forget, either.

But first, since I am so considerate to you, my dear readers, I want to you do something. I want to get up from the computer for a few minutes and get yourself a cup of coffee. Or tea. Some hot chocolate would be especially appropriate. Or a nice hearty cup of soup. That would work well, too.

Just get up and get something nice and warm for your tummy. Right now. I'll wait here.

I mean it. Seriously. Get something warm for inside. You will be glad you did.

I can wait.

I'm still here.

Won't go away.

I mean it. You'll be glad I asked you to do this.

OK. Almost ready.

Everybody here?

OK, we can start.

This takes us back three years, almost to the day. It was the day of the district football championship game. I didn't have to drive far on this night--just across the county, about 18 or so miles. Piece of cake.

We had received about three inches of snow a few days earlier. Then it got a little warmer, and some of it melted. The snow had been plowed off the football field where the game would be played.

Then, late in the week, temperatures fell. With a thud. The field, with some patches of snow still on it, froze solid. The night of the game came. It hadn't gotten much above 20 F all day, and now the sun had set. Temperatures were going down, down, down.

By the time I arrived and took my first pictures, it was already about 15 F. That's -10 C.



They had stationed propane heaters along the sidelines--for both teams, not just the home side.

Some schools we have visited for cold-weather games apparently
could only scare up one heater to their name. ;) This time, both teams had them. But one was facing the wind. Home field advantage, you know.

From my story: "But they couldn’t do much for the guys on the field. Many of them play both offense and defense, so they never got a long break on the sidelines."

Regardless of the cold, the band took the field as usual before the game ...


And the fans didn't stay home ...


Then the action started. The officials and many of the players wore gloves. The backs, who had to keep control of the ball, went bare-handed.



During the game, I wanted to go over to the heaters to warm up my paws. But I had a hard time getting there. This photo will explain why.


Yes, it's tackle football. Imagine getting tackled on a frozen field with just a thin layer of brownish grass on it. And this is a playoff game, too! Many players suffered abrasions. "While the field was as hard as cement," I wrote, "it wasn’t that smooth."


Also, the scoreboard wasn't up to the challenge. From my story: "After much monkeying around and switching on and off repeatedly, school officials threw up their hands and relied on PA announcements on the down and distance and how much time remained."


When it got to halftime ... well, here's what I wrote in my column:

As for myself, I had been wearing fingerless gloves while covering football since the weather got cold, the better to write notes and manipulate camera controls. But that was in normal fall weather, not December conditions. The fingerless gloves allowed my fingers (above the knuckle) to get really cold during the first half. Frankly, they were getting numb. Finally it got to halftime, and I went to my car, started it, switched on the heater and relaxed. The little Mazda has a good heater and I warmed up my hands, my fingerless mitts and my normal gloves. Half-time ended, and I went back to the field, wearing the normal gloves. But when action resumed, I couldn’t find the fingerless gloves. I walked up and down the sideline, looking around. I walked back to the car and looked. No gloves. So the other gloves were used during the second half. (It turned out the fingerless gloves decided at halftime to hide on the floor of the car and stay warm for the rest of the game.)

Look, folks, it's a district championship game. Important! I need notes to write my story. I cursed my bad luck and slipped out of my gloves as the second half started, slipping my hands back into the gloves at every opportunity. My handwritten notes got harder to write (and, afterwards, read) as the second half wore on.

By the time the game ended, temperatures must have been in the low teens. But our team had won. The batteries in my flash unit had given up the ghost (I had cleverly left the fresh batteries at home), so, for the post-game celebrations and trophy presentation, I used my camera's pop-up flash.

But the kids were really happy ...




Finally, I could go back to the car, start it up, turn the heater up on high and drive home. Even so, I felt like a popsicle. My wife said my hands felt like popsicles. My fingers, especially, of course. The tip of the forefinger of my left hand was especially bad. Numb. I think it would have been getting close to frostbite if I had stayed out in the cold longer. It took a long time for them to warm up again and for the tingly feeling to go away. Finally, they did.

The game was played on the east side of the county. We live on the west side. The overnight low on the west side was -1 F. That's like -18 C.

Epilogue: Our team's season ended one week later, at the regional championship game. It was played out of town, about 60 miles away. It was just a little warmer, plus it was windy. They had a propane heater on their side of the field. We had nothing. We lost. End of season.

* * *

They're playing in the regional championship game again this weekend. But this time, it will be inside the dome in Marquette, where it will be shirtsleeve weather. Nobody's going to get cold.

We take to the streets

Rush, rush, rush. See last week's entry. It was a little easier last week, but not by much.

I thought our team would get eliminated from the football playoffs last Friday night. After all, they faced the team that beat them 28-0 in late September.

Final score: Our team 44, their team 12. And one of their touchdowns came in the last minute, against our reserves.

So they go on. Next game is Saturday night, at the dome in Marquette. About 100 miles away.

Saturday, we got out of town to visit my mom. But we made plans to get back home by 7 p.m., so it was a little more rush-rush than usual. "I'm tired of rush-rush days," I told my wife. "And I'm even more tired of rush-rush weeks and rush-rush months."

OK, remember this wristband I wore last year? I showed it to you on MB last summer (back when MB was still alive).



After the "4" it says "Bush."

Every month up here, the Northwoods Peace Coalition holds a candlelight vigil on a Saturday night at a downtown corner. I had seen their signs earlier but always managed to forget about it until too late. This time, the final weekend before the election, I remembered.

There were about six people, including my wife and I. Here's what it was like. My wife is holding my candle--my hands were busy.



It was quiet and low key. One person had a sign that read "Peace now." But we were quiet--just stood along the street, talked quietly and held our candles. Some people waved as they drove past. Others honked the horn. We waved back.

It was in the mid 20s (a few degrees warmer than at the football game the night before). After a while I remembered that I had gloves in the car, so I got them, gave my wife my gloves and wore my fingerless gloves.

And that, really, was about it. We were there about a half hour, then the group broke up, and we headed for home to warm up. Watched a movie, then went to bed.

Tuesday, of course, is Election Day, and we're rock-solid voters. Every election we're there, no matter how seemingly trivial. The local Elks Club holds a "pancake day" on Election Day, so we'll get filled on pancakes and all the fixins. Then back to normal activities. I've got girls basketball that night, and then we'll turn on the TV and see what happens.

I've got my hopes. But then I had my hopes on Election Day 2004. The next day, I wore black.

Crossing my fingers.

Past presence

From what I can see here, everybody who celebrated Halloween/Samhain had a great time.

I don't do that. I don't do the costume thing or the visiting bars thing. For one thing, I was so wiped out last weekend that I was in no mood for anything. For another, I don't go to bars (once in a great while), and parties are foreign to me. I don't know. Not the party type.

Maybe I'm just so practical and serious about things that I can't be impractical and unserious once in a while. It's hard for me to be another person, to pretend. I guess I'm too far gone from childhood. It's been a while, you know.

Instead, I have been thinking of those who have gone on before me. That is part of Samhain, too--honoring their spirits and the lives they lived.

Where can I start? How about Nona? That's all I ever knew her by. She was my dad's aunt (I think), and we visited her when I was young and my family was "up north" to visit family. Just a little old Italian woman, always in a black dress, with a bun in her hair. She only spoke Italian, like my dad's side of the family. What I remember most is that I couldn't understand what she said--and that she always has pizzelles around. A lifelong love was born there--the thin Italian cookies, anise-flavored. We have a pizzelle iron now, and my wife makes them from time to time during winter. When I happily munch on one, my mind flashes back to Nona.

My mom has a different memory of Nona. She says she would always serve up some very potent Italian wine that would throw her sensibilities for a loop. Her side of the family is Danish and doesn't have the wine genes.

Then, there are my dad's mom and dad. Both, of course, are long gone. My grandpa had the whitest hair--like my dad did and like maybe I will have someday. He lived on a small farm and I remember it all very well. The machine shed. The chicken coops and barn. The fields around it--when we visited up north, my dad would often take us for a drive around the fields at night, with the brights on, looking for deer. "Shining" deer, I guess you could call it, although we just looked at them. The deer would just stare at us, with the retinas of their eyes glowing brightly.

I'd always make friends with his dogs. Shep was a collie. Rusty was an Irish setter. My grandpa had a little dog of his own, a rat terrier named Mickey. "Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, monkey," he'd say. "Ya-ya, Milwaukee," he'd also say. Where that came from, I wish I knew. My dad and mom lived on the farm after they got married, in a little house nearby, and that was where I lived after they brought me home from the hospital. But when my mom got pregnant again, they knew they couldn't stay, so my dad got a job in Milwaukee, about 225 miles away. It was about 1950, and there were plenty of jobs. Many, many people moved out of the U.P. in the post-war years in search of jobs. Eventually, we moved down there, too.

My grandma: She knew English, but had an accent. She had a squeaky voice. But she was very nice to us. Memories of sitting by the cast-iron stove. Their house didn't haver a phone for a long time. But they had electricity--even a TV! Indoor plumbing? That was years away. I pumped the pump many times, getting pails of water for indoors.

My mom's parents lived about a mile or two away. My grandpa was as tall as my grandma was short. He was a quiet man who worked for the railroad and smoked a pipe a lot. He is the one who I heard coughing downstairs at night when we would visit--that's where we usually stayed. My mom likes to tell the story of me and him when I was about one. He had gotten me a cookie, and I was enjoying it on the floor while he read his paper and smoked his pipe. When the cookie was gone, I'd pull on his pants leg. He'd look down at me. I raised up my hands at him, for him to pick me up. He did. Then I pointed towards the kitchen--more specifically, to the cookie jar. He carried me there, I'd reach down and get another cookie. He'd carry me back, and the whole cycle would start over.

My grandma was short and had the funniest kind of sneeze. It was like ah-AH-HAAAAH! They would come down to Milwaukee (the suburbs) to spend the worst of the winter months with us--winters aren't so hard in Milwaukee. It was there that she suffered her stroke, right around New Year's. She got to go back home in March but had another stroke within days and died. One of my first funerals. My grandpa died about two years later. The smoking caught up with him, you might say. You might also say he didn't really want to go on much longer without her.

The next one on the list is my dad. He died about 10 years ago. Cancer. I drove him and my mom about 100 miles for radiation and chemo a number of times. Really, it took just a few months before he was gone. He was a quiet man who had his frustrations with life and health--he worked at a factory and had back problems that they treated with an operation that didn't work as planned. Later, they stopped doing that operation.

He was also shy. Maybe that's something else I inherited. Especially when he was young--he met my mom when he offered her a ride--she didn't have a car and was walking to a girlfriend's place in town. He gave her rides regularly for several months before asking her out for the first time. They had to go through a lot of shit when they decided to get married. He was Catholic, and she was Lutheran, and mixed marriages back then were very rare. Damn religions messing up people's lives. The priest told his family that nobody should attend the wedding. And, being the obedient Catholics that they were, none of them did.

The last on this list is my brother. He was about 15 months younger than me. He loved cars and, later, motorcycles. It seemed that everything in life let him down. He entered the Army for a while and eventually was stationed in England, but it didn't work out. Then he got a job at Harley-Davidson's plant in Milwaukee--but that was at a time when Harley was going through a bad time (the AMF era) with bad cycles, and he said the other workers on the line did sloppy work on the machines they were working on. He was terribly disillusioned by that.

He was obviously depressed. He was the best man at our wedding and godfather for our oldest son. He eventually got a job at a service station/garage northwest of Milwaukee. I tried to get him to move up north, where we lived. He liked to fish, and my dad liked to fish. He also liked the open country. I tried. Maybe I should have tried harder. For on an October night, he must have had one too many disappointments. He got in his car behind the garage and had a few drinks and put some music on his eight-track. And then he attached a hose to the exhaust pipe, and ...

That's about 21 years ago now. Ever since then, I've known that I would be one of the last of my family. Once my mom passes on, it will be, well, just me. I have an uncle here and an aunt there. I have a few cousins who I see once in a great while. But really, there's just my mom and me and my wife and the two boys, who have both grown and moved out of home.

That's my world. That's my universe. Not at all overcrowded. Plenty of vacancy signs. Does that explain why I get lonely quite easily? You know, everyone else seems to have all kinds of family. My wife was one of eight, for instance. I was one of two. Now, one of one. Unique.

I don't mind being out of the ordinary. But not this way. Usually it doesn't bother me. I keep pretty busy with this and that. But once in a while ... I get to missing them.

Anyway ... that's part of the story of how I got from there to here. I have a lot of wonderful memories of the wonderful people who helped me along the way. There have been many good memories. And more to come! Who knows where this road will lead?