They Were Small Once

There was a time when my children were small. This might not seem like a profound realization, but it is. Most people my age or younger, have small children. Babies, toddlers, elementary school kids. They blog about cute things four year olds say, little league and the stresses of dealing with diapers, bathtime and family time. I, on the other hand, am planning my oldest daughter's wedding while praying that my youngest will graduate high school (which it looks like he won't).

I yearn for the simpler times. This growing up stuff is the pits. For them. For me. Remember when you wanted to grow up and be an adult and make your own decisions? I'm seriously thinking of asking my parents if I can move back home. I'll be good, I promise. Hell, I'll take out the trash, keep my room clean...hell, I'll pay the mortgage

I was reading a blog recently by a guy who has three small children. He's a good writer and he seems to have a wealth of material to draw from with three boys. What was I doing when my kids were small? How come I wasn't writing?

Maybe I'm having trouble with perspective. The things I THINK I have to write about don't seem humorous, interesting, or even mildly educational. I'm more irritated than anything.

I shouldn't be. My daughter got engaged, was actually able to find a house, and a mortgage in this economy. She has a good job and she's not only moved out, she's getting married in a few months. Why am I not overjoyed at this? It's not like I'm not proud of her, because I am. I'm most pleased.

Maybe, like I said, I just miss those more intimate moments when it was us and them. No cars, dates, jobs, or friends. They went wherever we went. They did what we did and ate what we ate. If Jane and I decided to go to the beach, they went to the beach. Now, we're lucky if we see them for a meal.

I guess, I'll just have to wait for grandkids.

Bed In Summer

By Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

Do you remember the anguish of going to bed while it was still light and the laughter of people older than yourself drifted up to torment you? I do.

Living History

For the first time since I've been eligible to vote for the President of the United States, I'm excited and terrified by the possible outcome of this election. Excited by the possibility of change. Terrified by the possibility of the status quo.



I turned 18 in 1986 with Regan in office. Two years later, while still not old enough to drink, I was given my first opportunity to vote for our nation's leader. The choice was between George H. Bush (The Weenie) and Michael Dukakis (The Dork). I honestly can't remember who I voted for but I'm assuming George Bush since I was a Republican and I don't remember being very hopped up about Dukakis.

At 7:12am this morning, I walked into the community rec center and cast my vote for Barack Hussein Obama, a Harvard educated black man with an African/Arabic name. I can't ever remember being excited about a Presidential candidate. I've never wanted to give money, or volunteer. I never understood people who were so passionate about one candidate or another. They all seemed rather lame to me. It was more about picking the best of the worst.

But I always voted. I'm a strong believer in our right to vote. I believe it is a gift that is awarded to the citizens of this country. We assume it's a inalienable right, but history says otherwise. It should be cherished. And on a more practical note, I believe that if you and your peers vote, as a group, you will be recognized by government and pandered to. There's a reason why senior citizens in this country are heard and young people are not. Old people vote. Young people don't. Historically.

For the past two elections, I've been one of those frustrating voters known as undecided. I honestly didn't know who I was going to vote for until November 4th. I simply didn't like either of them. In our last election, I voted for a Libertarian candidate. I can't even remember his name. It wasn't important because I knew he had no chance of winning. I wanted to be counted. To say I was there and that I voted. I wanted the politicians to know that there was a 36 year old, white male, living in Goshen, New Jersey that voted. And he didn't vote for you.

I feel like I did between the first half of Game 5 of the World Series and the conclusion 46 hours later. Excited and nervous. Excited that Obama could win. Nervous that the polls are wrong and he won't. If I was a betting man, and since I'm not superstitious, I'd say Obama is going to win by a fairly large margin. Dare I say landslide?

We'll see tomorrow, or maybe even later tonight. Hopefully I will be celebrating and not gnashing my teeth and packing up to join my brother in Canada.

Sister Maria Loyola Dougherty, I.H.M. (1925-2008)

A Kindred Spirit



In memory of Sr. Loyola, a kindred spirit if ever there was one.

I first met Sr. Loyola 4 years ago when she came to the 10th Annual Nun's Beach Surf Invitational, held at 110-111th Streets in Stone Harbor. She had always wanted to learn to surf, so a longboard was provided and she stood at the water's edge, the closest she was ever to come to hanging ten. I took this picture that afternoon, but neither she nor I was prepared for the resulting mania over this photo.

While I have been approached many times for prints of "The Surfing Nun", I have never sold it for commercial purposes. Nevertheless, it has appeared on t-shirts and cards, on websites and Facebook pages.

I'd been surfing Nun's Beach since 1998 when we moved from Cape May up to Goshen, NJ. My step-son Ricky wanted to learn to surf so we bought him a used board and since I figured it'd be easier to watch him from the water than from the beach, that Spring, I bought a board myself. It was a 7'8" Challenger fun board from Kona and it cost me $350.

In the 10 years since, we've gotten to the know the 110 St. Surf Crew, a motley mix of aging surfers and their families.

Day At The Beach

It's a beautiful day at the beach. Jane and I are here alone. I came down with Bob early this morning to surf. We started in Avalon then came back down to 110th street. From the time we went in the water in Avalon until returned to 110, the water temp must have dropped 10 degrees! It was freezing! My hands and feet were numb and when you came out of the water they burned. What's up with that?

Oink.

A Fire In The Fireplace.
Sunday was just a stunning day. It was cool in the morning, but the air was still and the sun was quickly warming it. The day before, I had purchased a new chiminea of sorts and eight potted mums the color of pumpkins. We have had a chiminea, a kind of terra cotta fireplace shaped like a light bulb, for years. We never bring them in so eventually they crack and break. We normally get about two seasons out of them and this year was our second year. It was shot.

For a couple of years now, I've been eyeing up a different kind of outdoor fireplace at a local garden center. It's basically a big cast iron bowl on a base of legs. It's an open design that more closely resembles a campfire than a traditional chiminea. I liked it for a number of reasons. First, more than one person can enjoy it at a time. The downside of the chiminea is that unless you are the one sitting in front of the opening, you don't really get the effect. The upside is they kick out a tremendous amount of heat. Our new fire-pit is low and round and open, so everyone sitting nearby gets to enjoy it. It's more like camping. The second thing I liked about it is that it's cast iron. I'm hoping it will last a lot longer. It should, it cost 150% more.

Saturday night, I'd had a pretty roaring fire for most of the night. It was beautiful. Before I retired inside, I put two pretty big logs on the top. Sunday morning I awoke at 8am and went outside to find the fire still smoldering. I threw a couple of logs on top and within minutes the fire was going again. Nice.

This Little Pig Went To Market.
So, back to Sunday. The fire was going. I had a fresh cup of coffee and sat smoking cigarettes and reading Gourmet Magazine. I simply couldn't have been happier. Later in the morning, Ricky came out with his guitar and serenaded me as I read. I was reading an article about a pork purveyor from Tennessee who is somewhat famous in professional chef circles, particularly in New York. It reminded me how Jane had surprised me recently with the intention of raising pigs again. After our last go around with the pigs, I didn't really think she was interested. I was thrilled. I love having them. I love the quality of the meat we get. But, realistically, she's the one who has to raise them. I'm just gone too much, leave very early in the morning and get home too late.

So there Ricky and I sat, me reading, him playing guitar. The sun was warm, the air still and the fire crackled nicely. Ricky ran inside and I decided to walk back and look at our old pig pen. It was a wreck. I grabbed the loppers and started whacking. Within minutes it looked doable. I went inside and called Ricky. He came wearily, wondering what mischief I was going to get him involved in. He almost collapsed in relief when I didn't ask him to mow the lawn but rather announced that we were going to rebuild the pen, and get pigs.

"Today?" Ricky asked.

I answered yes. Today, if we hurried. He was in. I changed clothes, grabbed some tools from the shed and we began demolition of the old pig pen. Soon, Jane, Bern and the girl arrived and everyone wanted to get into the act. I realized I needed some help and called Bob, who rose from the comfort of his sofa and agreed to help. It was his only day off for the week, and still he was up for a little adventure.

Unable to find the pig farmer's phone number (we had bought our last pigs from him), Ricky and I jumped into my car (the Audi) and took off to find out if our man did indeed have pigs. Ricky hesitated, wondering if we shouldn't take Julia's truck. His argument was that if he had some, we should be prepared, but I think his real reason is he didn't think it was appropriate to go pig wrangling in a TT.

We found the farm, Krogman's, and sure enough, there he was, cranky as ever. After some thought, he agreed to sell us a few pigs. We promised to call when we were ready and sped off.

Back home, we finished clearing the area, and figuring out a new setup. The last pigs had unwittingly unearthed an old well and we were trying to figure out how to reinforce the area, when someone came up with the idea to start the pen farther back and simply avoid the well altogether. I had already been toying with the idea of wrapping the pen around the back of the chicken coop, in a sort of L-shape, so the idea suited me fine. We had a plan.

What we didn't have was a Bob. Bob was waiting for his wife to come home with his truck, and since we couldn't afford to wait, Julia sped off to retrieve him.

Bob soon arrived and I explained my plan. Bob, Ricky and I then left for Home Depot for supplied. We needed posts, heavy tacks, a sheet of plywood and heavy wire fencing. The wire fencing would have to come from Smeltzer's, but everything else was attainable at the old Depot.

Our materials loaded up, we had one more stop. We needed something to put the pigs in once we picked them up. Bern had a carrier that their dog Roxie had flown over in from Switzerland. We sized it up and decided it would do.

Once home, Bob pointed out that we were going to lose daylight pretty fast and that we should send the kids to pick up the pigs while we got to work rebuilding the pen. I had screwed up and bought eight foot 4x4's instead of twelve foot ones. I planned to cut them in half to get two posts each, but I needed six foot lengths (two feet in the ground leaving a four foot post) and had simply miscalculated. Never fear, Bob was here. I had a six foot 6x6' left over from building the outdoor shower, and Bob set about cutting it in half to make two 3x6's. Meanwhile, I set about digging the post holes.

When you haven't been doing much in the way of physical labor, you forget how much work digging post holes is. Especially if you're digging in root-covered earth. My arms were soon rubbery and I was sweating. But if Bob was going to take his single day off to help me, I was not about to complain.

I was working on the last of my post holes when Julia and Ricky showed up with the pigs in tow. Julia crinkled up her nose and commented that Mr. Krogman, our local pig farmer, was not the friendliest sort, but that she had gotten the pigs. I reminded her that he was a pig farmer. What did she expect.

The pigs were small, dirty, utterly adorable, and crammed into a small dog carrier. We carried them back to the garden where we had decided they could run around until we finished building the pen. As is the way with pigs, I have learned from experience, they were hesitant to leave the carrier, but once out, scurried and rooted about the garden happily, while Bob and I got back to work.

As usual, Margot wanted to help in the worst way and was constantly under foot. Bob and I tried to hold our tongues, but every time you turned around she would be inches behind you and we were often using saws, swinging hammers, and other implement of destruction and we were afraid she was going to get seriously injured. We scolded her, and while she sulked embarrassed, she only moved another foot away from us. She was not about to miss any of this.

Ricky joined in now and with all the posts cut, and the holes dug, we began placing the posts and filling them in. Once they were all in, it was time to nail the fencing in. We were quickly losing light and needed to finish quickly.

Earlier in the day, I had actually thought we might be able to put up the fence as well as build a quick shelter. As usual I was woefully mistaken. We were going to be lucky to get the fence up and the pigs in before dark.

Everyone helped and soon the pen was ready. Now, all we had to do was grab the pigs and move them into their new home. Last time we did this, I don't remember it being such a big deal. Of course, the first time, there was only one pig, and we had cornered him into a small section of the garden, not the entire run of it. The second time, we used the same pen and I think we just transferred them directly into it.

Regardless, catching the piglets proved a little trickier than I had anticipated. I spent the better part of ten minutes chasing them all over the garden with no luck. Then Julia showed up and within two minutes had grabbed a piglet by the hind legs and was carrying it to the pen leaving me to wallow in shame. I regained my composure and proved myself worthy again by snatching the last piglet up and carrying him off. Both pigs scurried away from us and looked at us in disgust like we'd just insulted their mother, but they soon snuggled up in the straw we had piled in the corner and settled in for the night. It had been a stressful afternoon for them and a tiring one for us. Bob and I cleaned up the tools, grabbed a rum and relaxed by the fire for a smoke. It was actually Bern's 45th birthday and we were celebrating with a big Thanksgiving-style dinner: turkey with all the trimmings.

Bob and I finished off the day with overflowing plates of turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, broccoli, and hot buttered rolls. We removed our shoes and watched Sunday afternoon football in front of the large-screen TV.

It had been a good day.