Thanks for Ava Sophia

Thanksgiving Day is normally a time for gobbling the turk, floundering around in mash potatoes and gravy, sucking up cranberry relish and unbuckling your belt to make room for more.  It's also a day of football and falling asleep on the couch. 

I remember Thanksgiving dinners when I was a kid.  It was second only to Christmas as a traditional time for the entire family to get together.  Many families have a crazy uncle who wouldn’t be at the table if not for being “blood,” but the closest we came to that is my wild cousin, Lyle.  My uncle was one of my heroes as a kid. An “almost” Olympic weightlifter, he generated my interest in lifting weights and gave me my first 22 rifle.

But cousin Lyle was a wild man. He was a biology teacher who was known for demonstrating that spiders were harmless by eating a large spider in front of his biology classes each year.  He was the inspiration for my first interactive music software program, co-authored with Al Borges.  It was a national best seller and was titled, “The Spider Eater.”  I won't get into his exploits, but by today’s standards Lyle would be considered tame.  I remember him spiking the cider and conning my “non-drinking” mother into drinking it. She liked his concoction and I think she just pretended not to know what was in it. She was the greatest.

I remember the smell of the house, the warm fire in the family room and a huge turkey lying in obscene repose on the kitchen counter.  When the stuffing began I had the feeling that this was something I shouldn’t be watching.  It was time to leave the kitchen and it was more comfortable to go out in the crisp, cold November air and throw the football with my cousins and my brother.  After all, this is also a big day for football games.

When I was in high school, we played Campbell High on Thanksgiving Day.  This was the big game of the year. This was the day the rivals clashed and every player knew that, win or lose, a feast awaited him after the game.  In fact, I think that thought came to me almost as often as remembering whether I was to carry the ball off right tackle or block a linebacker.  Late in the fourth quarter the Campbell ball carrier began to look like a golden brown turkey.  That made him an easy target. We tried to knock the stuffing out of him.

Gayle and I will be having curry turkey on Thanksgiving Day with our Indian friends, but we’ll be spending time with our kids after Thanksgiving when things are less hectic. Being far from them makes it difficult.

Despite all that bad stuff going on in our country and the world, we still have a lot to be thankful for.  My daughter Shannon’s success at bring Ava Sophia into the world, after years of problems, comes to mind.  I guess if you didn’t have the “bad,” you wouldn’t appreciate the “good.” Ava Sophia Ciel Severino (4 names) is a miracle baby. Check out the photos of her above.  This is my first granddaughter. I have two wonderful grandsons, and Gayle has a good balance of two and two.  So Shannon's baby would be the first of many things I can think of to be thankful for on Thanksgiving day. Maybe every day should be Thanksgiving Day.

Sorry. This stall is Occupied.

I know it’s past time for a blog, so I’ll come up with something quick. 

It’s difficult for me to get past the insanity of the “Occupy” idiots, because that’s all we’ve heard about for weeks. No one with a brain can suggest that there is a comparison of this adolescent rebellion to the Tea Party. The Occupy dingbats are naive college students, union supporters, homeless druggies, and other societal dregs.

That’s evidenced by the drug use, rapes, murders, destruction of property, disease, open sex, and all the rest of the childish behavior. Defecating on police cars or in front of a crowd is not typical of civilized and intelligent adults. Most of these “flea baggers” have no idea why they are “occupying”, except to have fun, get stoned, get laid or break something.

You're Never Too Old

            I’m not a health nut nor am I a gym rat, but I do believe in exercise and its beneficial results.  And the results aren’t purely physical.  I’ve always believed that exercise can change a negative mood into, if not a positive mood, at least a “less” negative mood. When you feel good physically, it’s reflected in feeling good mentally. 

            When I was young, particularly during my college years, I got into weightlifting somewhat seriously.  Many of my friends were also into it back then. I worked out in an old-fashioned smelly gym with several close friends on a regular basis.  This was before gyms were popular or fancy. Since the gym was the only one in San Jose, I got to work out with professional wrestlers and pro football players. I continued to lift off and on through my younger years and came back to it later in life.

            I have to say that I retained some of my former strength into my 60s when we lived here in Quincy.  I worked out with a real serious former heavy lifter, who by then was in his 70’s. He was well past his prime, but was still tough and strong.  He told me that when you hit 70 you lose your strength very rapidly. Now that I’m there, I see what he meant.  When I was working out with him I was in my 60s and I hadn’t yet started the big slide to “feeble city.”

Autumn's Chill

The leaves are turning color and the air has a chill. It feels like fall, but what happened to summer?  I guess we had a few weeks of it this year, but the winters here in the mountains seem to get longer and longer.  The familiar smell of wood stoves burning in our small community is not unpleasant.  It adds to the atmosphere somehow and I still like to ride my Triumph and breathe the crisp air, flavored by wood stoves. It’s definitely Halloween weather.

Back in civilization, the cities are beginning to reap the results of an unhappy populous or maybe one segment of the population.  To compare the current protestors to the Tea Party folks is ludicrous.  There is no comparison.  Compare a flea bag with a tea bag. Most of these kids have no idea why they are involved, but it is a lot of fun and some even make it to the TV screen.  Now they find that many are being paid to show up.  In my humble opinion, this is just the start.

We are seeing an extension of “protestors” to “rioters’ in Europe, but, of course, none of that can happen here. But I remember something about the Rodney King riots in L. A., so maybe it can happen here and I faintly remember when the lights went out in New York years ago.  Not a good thing.

During the depression, men lined up for soup and sold apples to buy food. There was a moral law built into those folks.  If today’s   inner cities lost electricity for ten hours, what would be left when the lights came back on?  It’s a different mentality now.  Most vestiges of morality, empathy, and individual responsibility have been effectively eroded as our culture devolved.

So sitting on my deck with a drink while my dog explores the forest behind us or riding my bike up a winding road leading to a lonely lake may not be a bad alternative to urban chaos, road rage and the stress of life in the fast lane. And in our little community, the natives would tolerate scummy protestors about as long as it takes to drop a shell in a 12 gauge shotgun.

Ava Sophia Severino

I’ve been taking heat for not posting a blog for a week or two, but I have a good excuse.  I’ve been in the Los Gatos/San Jose area spending time with my daughter Shannon and my new granddaughter Ava Sophia.

Some of you know the problems Shannon has had in her attempt at having a child, so it’s an exhilarating feeling to see a pretty little girl blinking her eyes at a world that is much different than the world her grandpa peeked out at over 70 years ago.

I was a coward or maybe I was clairvoyant at my birth, because I didn’t want to come out.  I was a breach, which means I came out ass-backward, which is basically how I’ve lived my life. I’d still be floating around in there if the doc hadn’t grabbed my leg and pulled me out, kicking and screaming. I think that behavioral pattern was set back then.

But little Ava seemed quite content at her introduction to the temperature change, gravity, and swooning spectators.  I have to qualify her beauty and contentment by honestly saying that when she cries, I swear she looks like Don Rickles.

It’s interesting how everyone tries to see who the baby looks like. A baby is like an ink blot test. People see what they want to see, but the only physical trait she and I seem to  have in common is a lack of hair. But I have to be honest…she’s a beautiful little girl.

My granddaughter was the main event, but I met with a lot of friends while in civilization and spent time with a former professional athlete, coach and close friend.  I’m working with him on his autobiography. It’s my first “ghost writing” project and it’s not as easy as I thought it would be. The challenge is to avoid writing in my “voice,” and not the “author’s” style of speaking. It’s a very interesting project with many professional athletes and famous people like the Pope and the President of the United States featured prominently. This man had an interesting life as an athlete, coach and businessman.

But the primary reason for my “blog” absence was that telephone call at 5:30 A.M. from my daughter. A call Gayle and I had been waiting for over the past couple of weeks, advising us of the impending arrival and the true blessing of a beautiful baby granddaughter. Along with Gayle’s four, we now have seven grandchildren. Holy cow! I’m older than dirt.

Congratulations Shannon and Stephen.