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Le Halloween

Halloween is the one day each year when I miss my home in North America more than any other. Halloween in Europe reminds me that I am a stranger in a strange land.

Halloween is about empowerment. Kids are encouraged to be someone else, to ask boldly of strangers. By contrast, two teenagers stood on our doorstep in Belgium some years ago. They were dressed as bedsheet ghosts, the lamest of costumes.  They mumbled “Tricks or Treats”. Clearly novices. I gently pointed out that (a) I had no candy, because (b) it was October 29th so, wrong night, and (c) it was technically the singular, Trick or Treat, no “s”. But they only spoke Flemish. So things sort of broke down at that point. I gave them some apples. We looked awkwardly at one another through the eye-holes in their sheets before they wandered off.

Halloween is about excess: mountains of candy, over the top decorations, sugar-induced meltdowns. These are not only tolerated, but celebrated. Europeans are just hardwired not to go there. Tonight we placed our jack-o-lantern and a bowl of candy at the far end of our long Swiss laneway. Several times this evening I walked out to replenish the bowl. I need not have bothered. Apparently each Swiss child only took one candy each. Only one item from an unsupervised bowl of free candy? Come on! That would NEVER happen at home. Where I come from, this is what happens.

Halloween is about being unselfconscious, both for kids and parents alike. But our Euro-neighbors never let it all hang out. They stand together in svelte black slacks eating canapé and sipping wine while their kids circulate politely around the neighborhood. By contrast, my neighbor in Maryland used to rig a microphone to a speaker hidden in the pumpkin at the end of his driveway. As trick-or-treaters approached his home, to their delight the pumpkin would comment on their wonderful costumes. But in the spirit of unselfconscious excess, this neighbor also hit the booze pretty hard on Halloween. As the night progressed, the talking pumpkin became more belligerent. Alas, no drunken pumpkins in Europe.

Halloween is an intoxicating mix of fun and fear. At the consulate in Switzerland, Marines in camo hide in a darkened hallway that leads to the family Halloween party-room. They step out of the shadows as families pass down the hall. The result is lots of screams and more than one soiled unicorn costume. Take that, Geneva Convention!

I truly love living in Europe. But on Halloween, I miss my home.

 

Bonus – This just in from stateside friends as this blog post went to press: I had to stop tricks or treatsing early this year because I spilled my red wine all over the head and back of my youngest in her stroller. Don’t worry, the Asian costume makers didn’t use cotton, so the polywhateveritwas fabric didn’t absorb the red wine. Add that to the fact that the costume was way too big for her anyways, and that magic means she can wear it again next year! Woot!!! I’m totally winning at this parenting gig, let me tell you!

 

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]

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Home Repair

My father is a man of many talents. Home repair is not one of them.  Unless a home repair requires duct tape it is generally beyond him.

Gutter falling down? Duct tape.  Ripped screen door? Duct tape. Crack in the canoe? Duct tape. He once duct-taped our rotten picnic table together as a “temporary” solution. We did not buy a new one for over a year.

One day while driving our old van, dad thought he heard wind whistling through the floor. We peeled back the floor mat to explore. It turns out the wind was not coming through a few rusty pinholes, but rather through one giant rusted out hole the size of a basketball. We found an old piece of sheet metal. We placed it over the hole and anchored it in place with some duct tape. Dad drove that van with a duct-taped floor for another 5 years.

I once asked dad if he would show me how to fix something – anything – that did not involve duct tape. Most of the other dads I knew were handy. Could he show some home repairs that involved wiring, plumbing, or power tools? Dad looked at me thoughtfully. He nodded.

“You’re right”, he said. “It’s high time for me to show you what I know about home repair”. We agreed to install a garage door opener together the following day.

When I awoke the next morning dad was already in the kitchen. He was in his work clothes, cooking pancakes. I quickly got dressed and my heart filled with happiness at this father-son bonding.  We finished our breakfast and moved out to do our first real home repair together. Just then the doorbell rang.

There stood the neighbourhood handyman. “Good morning”, he said to my dad. “Thanks for the call yesterday. What is it that I can do for you?”

“Thanks for coming over”, said my dad. “We’ve got a garage door here that needs to be installed”. He handed our garage keys to the handyman and closed the door.

Then he turned to me with a twinkle in his eye. “Well son, that’s about all I have to teach you about home repair”, he said. “Any questions”?

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The Candy Man

We recently learned that our 12-year old son has been selling addictive substances at his school. What parent wants to learn that? But as it turns out, the more we learned the more we laughed.

Our son attends an international school. Earlier this year he discovered that his classmates crave a sugary candy called Air Heads. Especially the British and Asian kids, of whom there are many. You cannot buy Airheads outside of the United States, which probably says something about their obscene sugar content and addictive nature. Our son’s entrepreneurial antennae went up. His class is full of sugar addicts. Sugar supply is limited. What to do?

So he purchased (with our permission) a few boxes of AirHeads when we were in the US. The unit cost per candy was 10 cents apiece. Then he sold them at his school (without our permission) for $1 apiece – a 900% mark up! In business terms, he has a monopoly. In parental terms, he is exploiting his classmates. In ethical terms, this is highly questionable. In any case, the little rascal made $100 in his first day of “dealing”!

By the next morning, a horde of kids had gathered around our son’s locker. So much so that he had to employ two of his friends as “security”. Alas these friends are also British, so they don’t have cool street names like J-Dawg: they are Sebastien and Jeffrey. And, as Brits, their primary means of enforcement is class-based shaming. Regardless, our boy had got his English homies working the corner.

Over dinner, our son noted that he had developed a few “key accounts”, notably a girl named Sonja. Sonja bought $50 worth of AirHeads on the first day. I asked our son if he had given Sonja a discount. “I gave her the first one for free” he said. “You gotta hook the fish before they bite”.

I asked our son if he paid his enforcer friends. “No dad” he said, “They just work for the candy”.

I asked our son if he was helping himself to any of the candy. “No dad”, he said, “You never try your own supply”. What? Where is he learning this? Has he been watching The Wire?!!!

He actually made so much money that we made him do a business plan. He did one, and showed us his budget for reinvestment, savings, expenditures, and charitable contributions. At our insistence he has curtailed his dealing activities, for now. But he has recently joined the school “Entrepreneur Club” where he hopes – and this is a direct quote – “To make some real money”. Love that boy.

We reckon that our son is either our ticket to an early retirement, or that we have a future prison visit ministry.

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Peace

The Jesuit training center where I attend a monthly course is normally filled with joy and peace. Not today. Today, there is a disturbance in The Force.

Some months back I came to the center to interview for a place on the course. I was anxious. My anxiety was put to rest the moment I met him. Well into his 80s, he looked like a leprechaun.  Short, trim, prominent nose, gray hair parted to the side. He held the door open and welcomed me to the center in a sing-song Irish accent. He wore faded cotton trousers, slippers, and a cardigan knit long ago by a loved one. He asked me my name. He told me he would pray for me. Then he ambled off down the corridor, humming.

He reappeared throughout that first day, popping up in random places. He didn’t seem to be working, but rather drifting peacefully through the training center on some invisible current, as a fish might do in a huge aquarium. Each occasion when we passed he would stop, clasp my hand, say my name, and remind me of his prayers for me. His eyes twinkled. He hummed merrily to himself as he floated away.

I learned that he had once been a renowned expert in the practice of prayer. He had been a sought after retreat leader and author of several classic works. In recent years he has spent his days padding around in slippers, praying for people and radiating peace. He is perhaps the most peaceful human that I have ever encountered.

For 21 years he lived on the second floor of the training center in a small bedroom between the elevator shaft and the utility storage closet. The room has a tiny window with a distant view of the Irish Sea. Today he is being relocated to another Jesuit community. I suspect he is being eased out to pasture.

We met this morning in the stairwell. He did not recognize me. He held a box of paperclips in his hand. He told me he was cleaning out his small room and wanted to be sure the paper clips were put to good use at the reception desk.  I spontaneously gave him a bar of chocolate that I had in my backpack. I told him how grateful I was for his peaceful presence. His eyes welled with tears.

This afternoon I watched from a distance as the small group of remaining Jesuits escorted him to the taxi. They held him lovingly by the elbow as they walked together. Everything he owns fit into a garment bag and a single suitcase.

Headlines of predatory priests and politicians get me down. Today, however, I was reminded of the legions of truly great people who never make the papers.  These anonymous heroes make the world go round by quietly going about their life’s work.  As this gentle man has done his whole life, sowing peace.

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Dress Up

News flash: This week marks the one year anniversary of Words for the Weary. Thanks to everyone for reading these stories. I hope you enjoy doing so as much as I enjoy writing them. My thanks also to the intrepid blog curator for her weekly edit and story upload.  Let’s try to keep this going for another year if we can!

Sometimes, on very special occasions, a man just needs to wear a dress, dammit.

One such occasion was shortly after university for a theme party we christened Bridesmaid Revisited. The objective was to dig out old, often ugly, bridesmaid dresses mouldering in the closet and wear them for the party. How often do bridal party members get the chance to re-wear the dress they spent hundreds of dollars on?

The hitch was that everyone at the party was expected to wear such a dress. So that afternoon a number of us guys went down to the thrift store to see what we could find. I scored a big formal number in retina-searing yellow with pleats, an open back, and a huge silk flower affixed to the shoulder. I pity the poor woman who originally elected (or was obliged) to wear this dress. I sought to do it justice in her honour.

The party was a hit. Of the 70+ people there, only one was not in a dress. And he had chosen to attend dressed as a weedy wedding photographer. By midnight most of the party was sitting in the big kiddy wading pool at the municipal park across the street.  A neighbour called the cops. When the police arrived, they just stood there chuckling in disbelief. We got our picture with them before peacefully dispersing.  Thankfully this was in the days before social media.

Another occasion calling for formal dress wear was a wedding shower hosted for my soon-to-be-wife by friends of my mother. My wife was a bit nervous, since she did not know these women all too well. But being a good sport, off she went to the event with mom.

To ease her nerves (and without telling her of course), I suggested to my dad and brother that we follow them there and crash the shower dressed as uninvited lady guests. Of course they readily agreed. We dug out horrendous old dresses from the family costume box. We weren’t too convincing, since at the time dad and I both had beards and my brother’s legs rivalled those of a lesser primate. Still, one does what one can.

We drove to the shower, babbling nervously in our frocks. We stopped at a traffic light. A pick-up truck rolled up in the lane beside us. Behind the wheel sat the Chairman of the university department where my father was a professor. He glanced down into our car. He did a double take. His eyes widened, locked with those of my father in his frilly green dress. Time stood still. The light changed and, as we drove away, dad gave his Chairman a coquettish smile and wave. Then he turned to us and said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got tenure.”

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The Anniversary

We knew we would get married the first time we met.  Still, it’s not the sort of thing you discuss on a first date. And it almost didn’t happen.

We met at a Christmas party in Canada. My job was to greet guests at the door. I was resplendent in a pair of yuletide green jeans and two oven mitts shaped like moose heads. I used the oven mitts like puppets, welcoming new guests to the house in my best moose voice. The moose slurred a bit, since I had been “sampling” egg nog most of the afternoon. But most of the guests spoke French, so they had no idea what the moose was saying anyways.

I opened the door and there she was. The moose slurred Merry Christmas. She smiled, greeted me, and glanced down at my green jeans. It was not altogether a look of approval.

As it so often does during Canadian parties in winter, talk soon turned to hockey. I overheard her say to someone that her sports interest was not actually hockey, but American football. She instantly had my respect because you NEVER say that in Canada. She overheard me laugh at myself as I slopped egg nog on my green jeans. She was amused. Those first moments – respect, humour, and slopped food – formed a pattern for what was to become our relationship.

I switched to drinking tea in an effort to actually engage her in meaningful conversation. We talked for hours about family, faith, our previous work in Africa, and other matters of the heart. We exchanged numbers. As the party ended the moose bade her farewell. I watched her walk away, and I knew.

The next day I called. She was abrupt. She hung up quickly. My heart sank. How could I have gotten it that wrong? I hadn’t drunk that much egg nog! But then she called back. “Sorry about that”, she said sheepishly. “It was 4th and inches with Dallas inside the ten yard line and the game on the line. I just couldn’t talk. Kansas City and Oakland play in an hour, do you want to come over to watch?” And so it was to be.

Two short weeks later we went on separate trips to opposite corners of the world. We were going to see very close friends who happened to be of the opposite sex. During our respective trips our friends disclosed to each of us their preference to be more than friends. These expressions came from people we cared for deeply and had known for years. She and I still barely knew each other. What to do?

When we returned home I asked her how she had responded. She smiled and said, “I said thank you, but I can’t. Because a few weeks ago I met the man I am supposed to marry.” And so it was to be, 20 years ago this week.

This story is dedicated to the love of my life. Happy Anniversary, my dear.

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]

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The Goat

The goat was not happy about being tied to the roof rack of our Jeep. But we had no choice. It would be culturally unthinkable for our Ugandan landlord to refuse such a gift from his home village, (see “The Village”).

The poor goat began to kick and bleat as we drove down the dirt track leading away from the village. Each time a hoof thumped down on the Jeep’s roof my wife and I would jump. Our infant daughter would quicken the pace of her thumb sucking and stare upward, wide-eyed. Our landlord carried on as if nothing unusual at all was taking place.

We eventually approached the end of the dirt track. I slowed the Jeep to merge with the paved road. As I did, a cascade of goat urine washed down our front windscreen. If you have spent time around goats you can well imagine the smell. Not good.

We mouth-breathed our way back to town until reached the apartment. The gardener opened the gate. His eyes lit up as he saw the goat: a Ugandan laborer might eat meat once a week, if that.

The gardener, soon joined by the other labourers at the apartment compound, untied the goat and led it away. We knew what was coming next. We bade our landlord good evening, happy to no longer be accomplices in his goat caper.

But we were wrong. An hour later the doorbell rang. We opened the door and there stood our landlord’s housekeeper, Margaret. In her hands was a large shopping bag dripping blood with a hoof protruding from the top. In his generosity, the landlord had kept a quarter of the goat, given us a quarter of the goat, and given the remaining half to the staff. There was no way we could refuse.

Thinking quickly, my wife noted to Margaret that (a) we had no experience in how to carve up goat meat and (b) we did not have a freezer in which to keep it. Margaret kindly offered to butcher our share of the goat for a small fee. The landlord generously cleared some space in his freezer for us.

The next day Margaret brought us a small bag of frozen, cubed goat meat.  We cooked it for dinner. It tasted like the bottom of a shoe. No doubt it was our cooking, but I also suspect this was one tough old goat. It had lived a hard life in the village. After we choked down a few mouthfuls, we gave up.

Each morning for the next week or so, Margaret brought a new delivery to our door. She would then ask how we enjoyed the goat from the previous day. Of course we lied.

In reality, each day I was smuggling frozen goat meat off our compound in my computer bag. I was giving the meat to the laborers on the construction site where we worked. They shared it between them, then carefully wrapped the precious meat in newspaper to take home in the evening for their families.

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]

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The Village

A crowd of African women gathered around my wife as she breastfed our daughter. They giggled. Then one of them reached out and poked my wife in the boob.

We were deep in the African bush. Our Ugandan landlord had invited us to accompany him to his home village. We drove with him in our Jeep for an hour north of the city, then for another hour on a dirt track. We were not in Kansas anymore.

The entire village, perhaps 100 people, gathered to meet us. Our landlord was a big deal. He had “made it” in the city, and he supported most of the children in the village to attend school. He was greeted as a dignitary and we as his honored guests. Without doubt we were the first white people many of the villagers had ever seen.

The village itself consisted of a brick walled school with tin roof, a small church, and a few other mud and brick buildings. Hut were scattered amidst banana and palm trees. Chickens, dogs, and goats roamed freely. The hills around the village were terraced and planted. The air was filled with the sweet smell of wood fires with an occasional taint of livestock and sewage.

Our landlord went to conduct his business. My wife needed to feed our infant daughter, and so retired to the relative privacy of our Jeep. Or so she thought. Soon the women of the village followed her there. They clustered around within inches of my wife, smiling and shy, as she began to breastfeed. That’s when the boob-poking incident took place. The ice was broken. Despite the vast chasm between them, they united in gales of laughter. As she returned from the Jeep, the women took turns carrying our daughter and holding my wife’s hand.

Meanwhile, I was conscripted by the local boys to play soccer (football). The ball was made of banana leaves and twine. I was goalkeeper, following the time honored tradition of putting the fat kid in net. Also, there was no way I could keep up with these boys. They had been playing barefoot soccer since the day they could walk.  They moved with the speed of gazelles across the uneven ground. Soon one boy was bearing down on me. He let fly with a strong kick. I reached out to catch the ball.

It turns out that beneath a banana leaf exterior the core of the ball included some mud and cattle dung to give the ball weight. The ball splattered into my hands, spraying dung and mud on to my shirt. Everyone, myself included, erupted into laughter. Another moment of unity in this village from a different world.

Our landlord concluded his business. We said farewell. As we made for the Jeep our landlord explained that the village wanted to slaughter a goat for him (and by extension us) as a gift. This was a great honor and very a big deal. A slaughtered goat was worth half a year’s salary. We knew we could not refuse.

What we did not expect was to find a goat, still very much alive, already lashed to the roof rack of our Jeep. And not at all happy to be up there. …. What happened next will feature in next week’s post: The Goat.

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The Mechanical Bull

It was my friend’s stag night. We stood in the middle of a parking lot. At one end of the lot there was a strip club. At the other end, a country and western bar. The choice was obvious.

We strode into the country and western bar and were blown away. It was packed. There were ladies dressed like Daisy Duke, and dudes sporting belt buckles the size of a frisbee. The music was in full swing. We grabbed some beers and joined in the dancing.

At one point in the evening the lights went down. A siren began to wail and a spotlight shone over a paddock off to one side of the bar. The paddock was filled with sawdust and, in its center, the beam of light glistened on a mechanical bull. The crowd went wild.

People lined up to take turns riding the bull. The riders had to wear a ridiculous 10 gallon hat, like Hoss from Ponderosa. Everyone stood around the paddock and cheered the riders on.

We lined up. When I got to the front the operator said “Sorry, can’t let you ride”. When I asked why not he said “You are too heavy. This thing is so old we can’t get replacement parts for it any more. We have a 175 pound weight limit”. Needless to say I was disappointed.

My friend, whose stag night this was, produced a $20 bill. He gave it to the operator and said “Does this make my friend look a little slimmer?” The operator smiled and said, “Giddyup, Hoss”.

So I donned the ridiculous hat and mounted the mechanical bull. The crowd cheered. The operator really was worried about the fate of the bull, so he set it to “super slow-mo” speed. Honestly, I was moving around with the vigor of a granny in a rocking chair. The crowd roared for more. I made eye contact with the operator, urging him to dial it up.

So he did. What I did not appreciate was that, in addition to rotational and translational motion, the mechanical bull also has the ability for vertical motion. The seat of the bull dropped away from me, only to rush back up with the force of a battering ram on my testicles. This happened twice in quick succession. Boom. Boom.

There was a collective gasp from the crowd that sounded something like “ohhhhowwwww”. Then a searing pain in my nether regions as I slid off the bull into the sawdust without the full use of my extremities. I distinctly remember the grin on the operators face as I lay in the sawdust, twitching.

I spent the rest of the evening walking like a wounded gunslinger.

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]

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The Farm

The best investment we ever made was a share in a little organic farm. The primary value is not in the land. The real treasure is the one-of-a-kind couple who own and run the farm.

30 years ago I sat in the living room of their farmhouse interviewing with them for a job as a summer farmhand. I had visited other farms. I had interviewed with other farm couples. But this was the one. Somehow, I just knew it. What I learned during my summer on their farm would shape me for a lifetime.

The first lesson was one of overwhelming commitment. This couple pours all of themselves into this piece of land. And they do so without a safety net.  There is no romance in trying to live off the land. Often the farm does not reciprocate their love – drought, weeds, pests, prices can all beat them down. But they always rally, and forge on to somehow move forward.

Ingenuity was another big lesson. How do you make the margins on a hard piece of land? By building a wind turbine out of the rear brake drum of a car. By designing and welding your own custom farm implements. By building everything out of recycled freezer lids. This couple are masters at walking gently on the land, finding a thousand ways to use less while giving more. I expect they could teach more about “sustainability” than any college professor. For me, living with them was no end of a lesson.

Perhaps the most enduring lesson is simply how they face reality. As they forge a path back to the land, the rest of the industry goes for factory scale farms with huge petrochemical inputs. Where they plant trees, others farm within an inch of the waterways, washing topsoil away. The hard choices they have made are not recognized or rewarded by the market. Money is tight. The future is always unknown. Yet they are willing to live with constant uncertainty because of their commitment to making a different reality possible.

They have little in the way of family, but their land has been a haven for hundreds and hundreds of people over the years. They have no children, but their farm has been home to dozens, including my own two. As I write this, my son is driving the tractor in the field while my daughter finishes mucking out horse stalls.

This farm, and its impact on my family, is a lifetime dream come true. We are blessed to be a small part of it and to learn from two such unique souls.  30 years ago I sensed something special sitting in their living room. But who could have known then how this would all turn out.

This story is dedicated to the B’s. Thank you for everything.

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]