Who said snow? I didn't say snow.

The humidity is high today, which means my old classroom achieves this fascinating smell, a mix of body spray and sixty-year-old varnish and tater tots. It's an acquired taste.

I would NEVER commit the sin of speaking of winter before summer even starts, but I had this idea in February and first had the opportunity to finish it now. If today's humidity makes you shudder at the oppressive heat of summer to come, then here's a little bit of snowy refreshment. If you, like the reptiles and cactuses, love the furnace we are about to enter, here's a reminder of what we just left behind, to help you appreciate the impending temperatures all the more.

Hopes of Skating

My kids are seven and five, so they don’t know any better.

Sledding at Mitscher, 2013

I like to take them sledding at Mitscher Park, the neighborhood park just a block south of our house. There’s no technical sledding hill in the acre-ish field. It is essentially a big divot in the middle of the grid of houses south of Hamilton Avenue, west of Rudolph Road, and east of State Street. Whoever teased roads out of the woods and farm fields apparently could not stop himself from adding a few creative flourishes, abandoning strict parallel lines for the occasional trapezoid or, when the spirit took him, a little curlicue of asphalt leading to a quiet cul-de-sac.  However irregular the streets are, the whole area drains to Mitscher Park, which, in the case of Biblical rains or climate change monsoons, will keep all of our houses from floating away. And it has a slide and a swing-set. Win-win.

Mitscher Park used to have a skating rink, too, back when I loved Mitscher Park. When I was eleven, if time allowed after dinner on cold winter evenings, I could throw my ice skates over my shoulder and walk down and spend a half hour by myself gliding across the ice. That was freedom on at least three different levels. Freedom from my parents, freedom to do what I wanted, and freedom from the friction of rubber soles on the sidewalk. During the summer I would bike down for the Parks and Rec summer program, where one of the employees got all the boys in the neighborhood addicted to baseball cards. He sold me a Jose Canseco rookie card, and I have never checked, but I assume it is now worth a ton.

Sledding at Mitscher, 2014

Somewhere between when I moved out of my parents’ house, and then bought that house from them fifteen years later, the city stopped flooding the rink at Mitscher Park. When I take my kids there to sled down the modest slope in front of the abandoned warming house, ours are usually the only tracks in the snow. Last winter, a toppled early-season snowman kept watch over the former rink, covered by each successive snowfall until it was just a boulder in a field. The playground equipment on the other side of the park sees a little more winter traffic. The monkey bars are tough in mittens, and the snow does not leave enough leg clearance to swing, but snowpants in the tube slide are almost as fast as the hockey players used to be out on the ice.

My kids and I always start the outing by filling the sleds with snow and dumping them out on the concrete pad in front of the warming house, which makes a launch so they can build up speed before they hit the small hill. I try to point them at one compacted track when I shove them toward the drop, but they are terrible at steering, so soon the hill is a braid of paths. After a while, my arms get tired, and they are slower to get up when they bail at the bottom, so I wander around the warming house and look in the windows at the benches where I used to sit and put on my skates. I wish I could smell it again, that special mix of hot rubber floor mats and melted snow and old wood. I imagine most warming houses smell the same, but I’d still like to check Mitscher’s for myself.

On the walk home I imagine myself someday going around to all the neighbors’ houses to put together some sort of neighborhood association, or take up a collection, or at least get them to sign a petition to reopen the Mitscher Park skating rink. There are lots of kids in the neighborhood all of sudden, with lots of hockey nets in driveways. I know Putnam Heights is only couple miles away, but eleven-year olds can’t walk that far, certainly not on school nights.

Sledding at Mitscher, 2015

My wife makes hot chocolate for my kids whenever we return from sledding at Mitscher Park, just like my mom used to for me. My wife even keeps the tin of Swiss Miss in the same place my mom used to. If I am going to attempt some community organization to reopen the Mitscher Park rink, I’d better do it soon. By the time they’re twelve, maybe thirteen, tops, my kids won’t care about skating. That’s about when I stopped. I would hate for the city to put in all that time and money if no one appreciates it.

There’s always been an ebb and flow of kids in my neighborhood. The nights of some years are louder than others with the sounds of ghosts in graveyard and impromptu soccer and hockey games. I’m sure someone would appreciate the rink. I know I would.

Writing, Poems, Whatever, But I'm Wearing a GUMBY SHIRT

I think everyone who knows me can agree that I have curated a lifetime's worth of pretty kick-ass t-shirts. It's a skill, a worthless skill, but one that occasionally pays off when I find a thirteen-year-old video of me reading poem in a Gumby milk mustache shirt. That's the kind of thing people need to see.

Oh, and there's a poem, kind of meta-, back before that was cool. Or maybe it was after that was cool. Enjoy.

You Gotta Like That

Here’s a poem you’ll like.

This poem is like a poem that tastes good.

This poem is like a poem that feels nice.

This poem is like a poem that sounds like

a truck full of rock and rollers

crashed into a truck full of

sassy sweet singing finches

 crashed into a small compact car

full of crazy techno beats.

This poem is a lot

like a poem that looks

like a poem that smells like

buttered popcorn flavored butter popcorn.

How do you like that?

You like that?

You gotta like that.

This poem has capful of whimsy

a handful of frippery

a mouthful flummery

a hatful of flippancy

a dump truck full virility

and a tomfoolery-sized dose of pleasantry.

How do you like that?

This poem, which I am about to read to you,

has a crazy amount of fanciful rhyming

describing an ark-full of wacky animal happenings.

the ants all dance in their ant dance pants,

and there’s a chance of glance of steamy ants’ romance.

the crows know where the ho's go,

and the ho’s beaus wear the plainclothes

but crows close when snow flows,

and those ho’s compose rows and rows of prose and pros

and cons that can ban the frying pan

whose plan began as a fan of the man.

You gotta like that.

I’m going to read you a poem,

that sounds the same backwards and forwards

that spells a perfect palindrome

that can be anagrammed into the Declaration of Independence

that can be diagrammed to look like the Golden Gate Bridge

its words are all homonyms and

its syllables are all homophones.

Turn up the bass, and it beats a flawless

bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow,

turn up the treble and it sings

like a thousand prepubescent American Idol castratos.

How do you like that?

You are about to hear a poem

in which I conduct spiritual surgery

You like that?

With a scalpel of truth

I will extract my soul,

How do like that?

I will hold my soul in front of you,

where you can watch it glow,

some of you may be moved to tears,

some may be moved to laughter,

others will move with the music,

and the rest will move to bathroom,

because this poem has been known

to make people have to pee.

You gotta like that.

But most importantly, people,

This poem is about you.

It’s about the things you like,

and people, believe me when I tell you,

you will like this poem,

you will wake up tomorrow morning and say

“Man, I would like to buy that poem on compact disc,”

the first time tomorrow you see a particularly beautiful woman,

you will say,

“Dude, I would like to have that poem tattooed on my ass,”

the first time tomorrow Mother Nature taps you on the shoulder

And blows kisses in your ear, you will say,

“Holy shit, I really liked that poem.”

How do you like that?

You gotta like that.

Acute Sports Deficiency Syndrome

Uh-oh. Snow's gone, sun's out. That means people are going to want to play sports with me. My kids, relatives, backyard football, charity runs, it is all starting again. But there's a problem.

This is another piece from back in the Volume One archives that, like a frog frozen in the mud, is finding new life amidst the rising temperatures. Don't pity me. I've learned to cope. Pity the other sports idiots who still struggle with these issues.

Please Don't Pass Me the Ball

I am dumb at sports. If our society determined overall intelligence using kinesthetic sense and, by extension, mechanical aptitude instead of language and mathematics, I would be living in a special home with several other sports-challenged gentlemen. A college student with a Social Work major would show up a few times a week to take us to a baseball field and watch as we flailed around and attempted to kick field goals with our Nerf frisbees. My housemates and I would get ice cream afterwards just for trying.

Standing around was the part of kickball I was best at

My golf game is an excellent indicator of my competition IQ. I took Parks and Rec golf lessons at twelve years old, and I did not even succeed in learning the names of the clubs. I listened intently to the instructor, often with my hand on my chin, squinting, trying my hardest to make it look like I had any idea what he was talking about.  Then I would walk up to the T-box, pull out my won wood, place my feet shoulder-width apart, bend my knees, swing, keep my eye on the ball, follow through, and hit that little sucker fifteen feet straight to my left, often breaking another kid’s nose.  1992 was a banner year for facial reconstructive surgery in the Chippewa Valley.

I still try to golf, and although there has been a tiny amount of improvement, I am still dumb at golf.  There is no way for me to translate what I understand I am supposed to do to actual body motion.  I just walk up to the ball, have a violent golf spasm, and hope it goes well.  My father-in-law joins me every few T-times, and he tries to help.  He is a retired middle school biology teacher, so he has a mountain of experience in helping mindless human beings learn new things, and preventing them from eating whatever is being dissected.  He watches my swing and makes very insightful comments on wrist-breaking and hip rotation, and then I walk up to the ball again and have approximately the same violent golf spasm, sending the ball to approximately the same spot, thirty yards to the right of fairway behind a large tree. There is always a tree.  My father-in-law usually offers some genuine yet somehow not reassuring comment about consistency.

 I am #44, the kid who looks like he's wearing eye makeup.

I have tried all the sports, and I am dumb at all of them. In youth league soccer, I would run after the ball, then fall, either out of exhaustion or because I tripped, and then become engrossed in the grass, often weaving several strands together into a sturdy grass rope. I produced impressive grass ropes in youth baseball, too, but not because I found myself on the ground. Right field was so boring, I just sat down. Middle school basketball was rough, probably because Ian and I went to Burger King and ate a mountain of french fries before each practice, then wondered why the sport was so difficult. In two years I scored only two points, because on the last game of the second season, our team was ahead by a ton, so everyone passed the ball to me until I made a basket, which, I believe, is also how Michael Jordan was able to achieve greatness. I played bar league volleyball for several years, and every success there came from finding the weak link on the opposing team and serving to him or her relentlessly, like a huge jerk. I got pretty good at pitching in an adult kickball league after several seasons. That pride was squashed under an attempt to slide into third one game. I sat on my foot and bent it in half, which was not bad enough to earn an actual sports injury. It just forced me to use crutches, and when everyone asked what happened, my response was “soft tissue injury,” which is sports code for “wuss.”

Washers: The Type of Sport I Can Handle

And now summer is coming, and my sporting disability is once again an issue, because everyone is dusting off their bocce ball mallets and trying to find enough people for a racquetball team. And now I have a son who loves sports. While I write this, he is shooting socks at a laundry basket. Some of them even go in, and he does not require seven other boys passing him the socks over and over until statistics dictate that he makes one. For him, I will keep trying my best.  If you see me on the golf course, cover your nose.  If we meet on the soccer pitch or the baseball field, I would be happy to weave you some grass. And no matter what the competition, prepare yourself. I have a pretty impressive sports spasm.

Shedding Season

So, spring is great, warmer weather, melting snow, yeah, yeah, everyone's thrilled. BUT, there is this phenomenon, especially in the northern USA, that can be disconcerting. It is one of those raw and explicit nature things. You know it happens, you just maybe don't want to see it. Everyone sheds their winter clothes to display their supple toes and legs and upper arms. In the case of white people, everything's also all pale and pasty. Gross.

I wrote this several years ago about the rare organism that erupts from this metamorphosis already in full splendor. After all the first-time flip flops I saw yesterday, this thought helps.

Footing

Black ice hates your tailbone and wants to hurt it

The only way to successfully walk on ice

is to have the confidence you will not fall.

I’ve seen it.

I’ve seen the double-takes

follow her in instinctual waves.

She catches every eye twice.

At least.

Cold March froze its own rain,

the sidewalks are treacherous,

but she is grace in polar fleece.

Sex in mittens.

Everyone else

sacrificed gender to scarves and ski jackets,

discarded male and female in the snow bank.

She found it all,

and although we may be warm in our down

her winter wear radiates heat that permeates

everyone’s Gore-tex shells.

I watch her step, step

confident of her footing

glance down, glance out

caring, but not looking like she cares

knowing she looks good, but not looking like

she knows she looks good.

I think of my morning.

Six minute shower, two minute toothpaste,

Thirty second hair gel,

her cheek alone must have taken an hour and a half

her calf would have needed at least two months

and I assume she spent about three years on that wrist.

I got up at 7:30.

She must have gotten up in 1992.

 High Heel Challenge Level 4 - Cobblestones

It shows, and she’s showing it to whoever cares to look

a runway model on a skating rink

and, you know,

with all the frocks and drapes

all the casings and coverings

it is the confidence

because I bet she looks best in pajamas.