The Last Summer

My father’s face brightened as the yellow whaler pulled up to the dock with my 14 year-old nephew at the helm.  “That…was… my… boat,” he choked out a full sentence as the mental connections attached and sputtered, like wires in a flashlight, illuminating the memory.

 

 

It was the boat my father had hopped on for years to escape the confines of the shore.  He’d taken us all for rides, including his nine grandchildren, especially when their tired mothers needed a break.  At the wheel of any vessel, out on the blue green waters of the lake, my father always found peace.

 

This is likely the last summer my Dad will be able to come to the mountains, his favorite place in the world. Dementia or Alzheimer’s or whatever corrodes his mind in a slow erasure is scrambling the circuitry.  The predictable routine he endures at his assisted living facility in Boston is lost here at the lake.  There are wide open spaces and wooded paths, vast stretches of time with inactivity, then the sudden flurry of all of us around, conversations swirling like individual eddies that confuse and capsize his cognition.  “All this noise,” he says, looking up at me helplessly.  The frustration and anger, the weepiness of past summers has mostly passed.  In those moments it was painful to watch him, like a drowning victim, capsized by the fear of his mortality.  My father is childlike now, a simple man.

 

Disease, we call it.  And it is a “dis” ease, an uneasiness among us all at bearing witness to this gradual loss, this diminishment.  He can no longer communicate beyond simple phrases.  The hands that once dug in dirt and were callused from chores, are soft now like a babies.  His limbs and extremities are roped with veins that break easily and form angry bruises just under his paper-thin skin.  In the absence of fluid language, his arms swoop through the air like a conductor, fingers flitting a secret sign language, in an attempt to express himself.  His wide, eager smile breaks my heart.

 

My children are the fifth generation to return to this lake each summer.  And it is inconceivable to me that my father has been asking to “go home” to the assisted living facility.  But this IS your home, I think, the home of your heart.  This is the your “sacred” place, the spot where you found joy and sanctuary. Remember when we’d spy the first sliver of lake and burst into song as the station wagon crested over Tongue Mountain? Can’t you feel your roots in this land? I want to ask him. But he would only look perplexed at such a probing, complex question.

 

We three sisters know the family generational lore by heart.  Our nook on the lake is where I was conceived, where my father, hiking alone the year before he met my mother, almost slipped and plunged to death while climbing a rocky cliff.   “If it weren’t for a lone root on that sheer rock, none of you three would be here,” he’d remark solemnly during our annual pilgrimage to that spot by boat.

 

There is nothing at all easy or comforting about being around my father now.  So many of my friends and contemporaries are traveling in this middle place, the valley of mid-life, with aging parents.  We are all at various stops aboard the orphan train.  The details may be different; Alzheimer’s, stroke, cancer, a sudden fall, but the broad-brush strokes are the same.  Losing a parent is tough, primal stuff.  You only think you are prepared.

 

“Don’t ever let me go into a nursing home,” my Dad said repeatedly when he would return from visiting his own mother in an almost vegetative state.  “That’s not living. Just take me out back and shoot me,” he’d exclaim with a pained expression.

 

Humans were built for survival.  We are wired to desire just one more day with the people we love.  We are war-like creatures, spoiling for a fight against death.  But at what point can we truly recognize that the scales have tipped, that there are now more bad days, more days of pain or confusion or difficulty than the good ones?

 

This is heavy stuff, you say. You bet it is, and so let’s tiptoe away to another thought for a moment. This is what I really want to know.  In the end, if you are scared and addled or in pain, does a life well lived mean anything?  Do all of those precious memories, the summer afternoons where you held your grandbabies high over your head on the bright beach, the mornings you woke your young daughters at dawn to fish, the walks down the aisle with each girl, the boat rides with the wind in your hair… does any of that count for us at the end?  I hope to God it does. I hope that it brings comfort and calm and a sense of purpose in some small measure.

 

 

My father sits next to me as I write this, staring out at the lake in which he’ll no longer fish or swim or captain his boat.  I hope that, like muscle memory, those images of a life well lived, of happier moments, are playing in his head like an old time movie, reminding him that even though this hurts like hell, he is loved.

 

Note:  I wrote this piece last summer and the seasonal timing didn’t work out to publish it until this year. I had also wanted to see if Dad would return this summer, giving me a happy reason to revise this post. Sadly, 2012 was the first year of my life that my father didn’t come to the lake.  And he was missed.

 

 

 

 

 

THE DODGEBALL TEST

It all started with my nephew at a family dinner.  We were grilling him about a kid his age, someone we vaguely knew.  “He’s an OK guy,” offered Collin, chewing his burger.  “But he cheats at dodgeball.”

 

Instantly, we all got it.  From that moment on, how you played dodgeball became our family’s insider character test.

 

Since my Ked-clad camp days, dodgeball has enjoyed a resurgence in cool.  It’s not quite the same bully’s nirvana it was in my gym class. You don’t try to nail the chubby girl in the back row who eats paste or the nosepicker with knocked knees.  Dodgeball is a process of elimination; a survival of the fittest.  Initially it’s organized chaos, with dozens of balls flying around simultaneously.  Get hit anywhere below the neck and you’re out.  It’s pretty black and white.  And in the craziness of the game’s first few minutes, it can come down to one person’s word against another’s. 

 

There are the people who get hit and deny it.  There are some who challenge the call, and still others who give in and slink off when questioned.  And then there are those who do the right thing.  Even when no one is watching, they pull themselves out of the game and onto the sidelines.

 

I aspire to raise one of those kids, the ones who self-police, no matter who is looking.  It’s hard work to install a moral compass that stays relatively true.  You have to be willing to nag and stay the course and remind and nag again.  But the payoff is huge.

 

A few years ago I rented an R-rated movie with my daughter and two of her friends.  It was mostly inappropriate humor, bad language and some cheesy violence, but when I saw the rating I made sure to ask both kids if this was OK with their parents.  I was impressed when both girls called their mothers to double check.  They could have easily lied.

 

When I complimented my daughter on her friends’ stand up nature, she immediately jumped on me.  “Mom, I’ve never seen an R-rated movie ever.  And I’d check with you first,” she huffed defensively.  She’d passed the dodgeball test on that one.

  

I’m well aware that sneaking R rated movies or cheating at games aren’t gateway activities to cooking meth or serial killing.  But doing the right thing starts with emphasizing the minor stuff.  It’s about being vigilant.

 

By trying to be our kids “buddies” and shying away from boundaries, too often we let the little things slide. And that means we pass up lots of small but precious opportunities to teach good old-fashioned citizenship and manners.  Respect for the elderly, giving up your seat on the train, looking people in the eye, delivering a firm handshake, where else will our children pick these things up? I have a warm spot in my heart for a young man who calls me Ma’am, even though I wasn’t raised anywhere near the south.

 

I want my children to understand that there are consequences for actions. That means we need to follow through with our threats. There is a famous parenting story about a family traveling to Disney World. Exasperated by the dreaded “when will we get there?” question, the parents told the kids if they asked one more time, they wouldn’t be able to go to Disney World.  When little Johnny broke the rule, they stuck to their guns. The miserable parents went to the park sans kids, hiring a sitter for the hotel room. 

 

 

Yes, I sound like the grannies of a previous generation, cluck-clucking at that hip-swivelin’ rock’ n’ roll music. Or, heaven forbid, I recall how ridiculous Tipper Gore sounded to me in the 80’s calling for music labeling on records, until I had my own kids and really listened to some of the misogynist bondage rap stuff on the radio. I took back everything I’d muttered under my breath about Tipper and freedom of speech that day.

 

When my children were very little, in the span of three weeks I left my wallet on top of our station wagon twice and drove away.  Those were exhausting days with two kids under age four and a home business.  The second time it happened, after I’d just replaced all my credit cards and license, I burst into tears at the realization. I’d just been to the cash machine and withdrawn my weekly budget.

 

The phone rang a few hours later.  A man had found the wallet.  He lived 20 minutes away in what I knew to be a somewhat sketchy neighborhood.  I was making bets that the money was gone. Planning on giving him a reward, I also bought a 12-pack of beer, figuring he could turn the night into a party in his ‘hood. 

 

When I rang the bell, the man who answered the door was in flowing robes, with a top knot of hair.  I quickly reached into my limited knowledge of Eastern beliefs and dimly recognized that he was a Sikh.  As I thrust the beer at him in gratitude, he practically recoiled.  “We don’t drink in our religion,” he said.  And he proceeded to invite me inside for a cup of tea.  My humiliation at my sanctimonious neighborhood profiling was complete.  The wallet was intact, with every dollar untouched.

 

There are basic things we all wish for our kids that include good health, the capacity to love, intelligence and common sense.  But I think about some of the other characteristics I hope we’ve instilled, as they sit on the lip of our nest, poised to fly. My hope is that I’ve raised kids to be considerate and upstanding, to do the right thing on the sidelines, not just on the 50 yard line in the floodlight’s glare. I want them to be the kind of people who would return the wallet with every cent intact.  I want them to defend the underdog and play fair, to be the person who takes himself out when he gets hit in dodgeball because the rules apply to all of us, whether or not anyone else is watching.

A Young Musician Follows His Dreams

This weeks contribution from my sis Nancy.....

The Friday assembly at Rippowam Cisqua School was a full circle moment in our family. Alum and singer song-writer Collin McLoughlin returned to the place where he fist got up on a stage to sing. I can remember his role as "Tartan" the male lead in the school musical 14 years ago.

In those days, Collin was a frail fifth-grader, wearing a furry caveman costume which barely covered his scrawny shoulders. He belted out the songs with a high-pitched quaver and it was a lightning bolt moment for us as parents. His dad and I had never heard him sing before.

That was just the beginning. Collin addressed the Rippowam audience with a motivational speech about following dreams, a timely topic, since the bonus track on his newly released EP is called "Chasing Dreams." The day the new album (entitled "Stark Perspective") was released on iTunes, it was the second most downloaded in the singer songwriter category on the world charts.

Mr. Fonera, Collin's former Rippowam music teacher, was the first to put a guitar in his hands as part of the music program. He attended the Friday assembly and seemed to enjoy what must have been a satisfying "teacher moment."

Collin briefly outlined his personal "post-Ripp" journey, which took him through Wooster Academy, and then on to Colgate University. Although a philosophy major, he explained how writing and singing music enabled him to enter and win contests while at college.

"We started out doing 'crunk' rock," he told the kids. "It is distorted guitar and crazy heavy drums with rap singers and choruses, which are what I wrote and sang."

After a generous donor created a state of the are recording and broadcast facility at the college, members of his band, who were not considered part of the music department, gained access to the premises under cover of darkness when a sympathetic janitor, who was also a fan, let the group in to record and write music off hours.

Eventually, Collin was granted permission by the administration to use the new space and launched Broad Street Records, a Colgate-student run record label still in existence today. The label promotes and encourages all Colgate musicians to record and produce their own music, some of which was then broadcast on the college radio station and website.

"I wanted everyone to have a chance to be heard even if they weren't officially going into music as a career," said Collin, who found he loved managing the label.

The college asked for permission to utilize some of Collins original acoustic soundtracks for use on their website as background.

Winning student votes in a school competition earned their Colgate group, entitled, Nautical Young opening slots for popular artists on tour like Lupe Fiasco, Wale, and K'naan. When the group graduated, its members scattered to follow new career paths.

Collin launched a solo career, opening for and collaborating with popular artist on tour like Sam Adams, and spending the first summer playing shows in club settings like The Bitter End in New York City and Cafe Lina in Saratoga Springs.

Collin addressed the Rippowam students and spoke about finding a passion in life. He advised them to "try everything" saying that a school like Rippowam teaches students to place and equal value on arts and athletics.

Collin described how his very first guitar lesson, still a mandatory part of the Rippowam seventh grade music curriculum, was less than inspiring. "Why didn't you like it?" came the questions from Mr. Perry, Collin's former science teacher. "Learning the basic building blocks of guitar chords means you have to start with very simple songs. To get to the next level, you have to stick with it and practice." He added, " I was impatient. You can only play so much row row your boat before you just want to upgrade to something from the radio."

The six foot two musician stood with an acoustic guitar strung over his shoulders and said, "Its Friday and I remember what that means around here. How are you all doing?" In and effort to elict more volume from the audience he grinned saying, "You can do way better than that, lets hear more." And the students complied, hooting, clapping and shrieking.

Playing concerts in venues that include boarding schools and colleges, his bookings take him as far away as California, and have helped to amp up them demand for his new music. In the past he has written dance tracks and acoustic, electronic ballads, many of which he has sold to record labels like Ultra.

Collin closed the show by playing a sneak preview on a big screen of his cover video "Not Over You," which has since been released.

Each student left with a copy of the very first CD of songs Collin recorded, containing music produced when he was just a few years older than the Rippowam audience. It was Collin's way of sharing an earlier piece of himself and restating his message, "It is never too early to start following your own dreams."

Guest Blog by Nancy McLoughlin

So proud of my nephew! Vote for him in the Billboard Battle of The Bands! (Click below for the scoop..) Lee
http://www.billboard.com/features/northeast-battle-of-the-bands-2012-1006354752.story#/features/northeast-battle-of-the-bands-2012-1006354752.story