prayers for peace

When Bob married my Aunt Barb, I thought it'd be a long time before he felt like family to me. In my mind, I felt like my life had been so long that the time before I knew Bob would always be longer than the time since he came into our lives. Of course, I was wrong. I had no perspective.

I'm not really sure when the change in perspective occurred. Maybe it was when he always made time for me to get a beer at the Moose. Maybe it was his selfless giving to making Granny laugh. Maybe it was how he sent care packages to every one of my friends when they were deployed. Or that he continued to ask about how they were doing eight years later.

I know the change was so gradual that I never noticed. Family is like that. One day, your cousin is feeding you mud pies; the next, he's standing by your side, trying to cheer up the rest of the family as they try to make sense of the incomprehensible.

Bob wasn't all laughter and smiles. He came off a bit gruff when I was younger. As I came to realize over the years, he kidded the ones he loved. If he didn't like you, he wouldn't waste his breath. Just like most of my friends.

Hammerhead. Testa dura. Governor. Friend. Uncle. He passed away this afternoon after a fierce battle with cancer. Judging by the reactions of the rest of my family, I'm not the only one who's going to miss him.

from three to seventy-one

I happened to find myself with a little extra time this afternoon. There's been several occasions where I've tried to get to the Pentagon Memorial, only to be denied by poor planning on my part. When my folks were here for Thanksgiving, we discovered it's kind of tough to park on a military reservation without the proper credentials. With glorious weather today to boot, I found my way there with the help of Metro. It's apparently the only way to get there easily. I would've ridden my bike, but that's a little treacherous on the roads I'd have chosen.

Anyhow, it was a moving experience to say the least. Check my photos once I post them tonight or tomorrow. There are 184 individual benches parallel to the path of Flight 77 as it made its fatal descent into the Pentagon. The names are organized by the youngest victim at the entrance (Dana Falkenberg, born 1998) to the oldest in the back (Capt. John D. Yamnicky, Sr., born 1930). The tightest cluster with moving water moving emotions is centered with men and women who would've been in their late 30s and early 40s. A fair number of military officers, several enlisted non-commissioned officers and staff NCOs, but the bulk were the victims on the flight.

Mothers. Fathers. Brothers. Sisters. Adults. Children.

It brought back that same flood of emotions that I felt that cool summer morning in Florida. Shock. Heartbreak. Regardless of where you were on that day, that twinge of fear ran through all of us. Like our parents when they found out about JFK, we will always remember exactly where we were when we first heard.

get it right!

man, i can't keep flight info straight! first, i thought i had a direct flight. wrong. then, i thought i was supposed to leave today. wrong. finally, i thought my flight left at 7:30 tomorrow. wrong.

flight takes off at 6:00. looks like i'd better get to bed and get some sleep. after packing. and calling three people i said i'd call tonight. and making sure that i have someone to pick me up from the metro station. and taking a shower.

it's gonna be a long day tomorrow...

mmm, sulfur!

i'm a writer for a music website called jamsbio. well, sort of. i was a beta writer. once they stopped paying for contributing, i kinda quit doing it. more important phish to phry. the premise of the site is that certain songs are linked to memories in your life. listen to a song, tell a story to go along with it. interesting concept, no?

whilst on a bicycle ride today, mind a-wandering, i connected another sense to memories. the beginning of my ride was hella fun. zipping along a paved path, twisting alongside four mile run in breezy wooded glory. much fun. except for that god-awful smell. sulfur. it immediately linked to several happier memories in my past. thank goodness! here it is, my moment of zcent.

the ball fields in north lauderdale were next to the water treatment plant. every fall (or was it the spring?) i played ball in the asphyxiating stench of sulfur used or released in the treatment of raw sewage. i loved playing baseball, bad as i was, so my young mind came to associate that smell with baseball. the smell of the non-potable sprinkler water used municipally at most city and county parks always brought me back.

when we moved to coral springs in the last month or so of fifth grade, i quickly realized that living less than a quarter mile from the treatment plant would put that smell in my nostrils for the majority of the days i played front lawn baseball or football or rode my bike. it was then that i also started camping in boy scouts. any of you that've been to camp seminole in davie (few in number for sure!) know that the water we were supposed to drink and clean with was tainted by the same resident of number 16, periodic table. it took a few years before my taste buds would adjust to the shock of such a vile elixir, nevermind my body to the simultaneous shock of a cold outdoor shower and the sensation of not getting clean in tainted water.

i'm not really sure where the stench came from today. dog poo fermenting in four mile run. industrial runoff along west glebe road. stagnating water. straight up raw sewage. who knows. all i can say for certain is that, pretty as it was, i'm probably going to avoid that route until it cools off and that cooked putrid olfactory assault subsides to less nausea-inducing levels.

new names at a new job

has this ever happened to you?

you start a new job. people introduce themselves to you. they more or less automatically assume that you know their names immediately. as time passes, it becomes more and more awkward to ask, "what's your name again?" you try and try and try to remember this one person's name: overhear it in conversation, wait for one of the kids to say it, steal a glance at their id badge. nothing works. you know if you hear it one time, you'll remember it, but damned if you never do!

yeah, me too. rarely is she ever in the same place as the other teachers and instructional ass'ts, so i can't pick it up there. can't ask one of the students in the room she works in, they're a little less than communicative. tried stealing a glance at her i.d. badge, it's always turned the wrong way. in fact, i'm not so sure that it can be seen. the part that makes me feel the worst is that she greets me by name every morning. we talk several times a week while her 4 little charges play on the playground with my 23 rugrats.

i'm a terrible person!