The inevitable season

 I have been down this road better than 50 times that I can likely remember. It is the same and individually different. It always starts with the warmth of kitchens and a smell that brings me back to childhood days of crisp mornings, fresh paper, and the electromagnetic hum of fluorescent ballast.

The retreat happened over and over. We always knew it would be there. Days would become bright, but only because the dim light was unobstructed. Then in the four o'clock hour, the darkness came and there it stayed for three months. 

Solace came across the nighttime stratosphere. A blowtorch that could be seen in the darkness across 400 miles of an infinitely dark sky. It reached across the Atlantic Ocean to the coast of Killadoon shining bright, clear through to the west coast of the African continent. 

Radio waves, electric motors, and incandescent bulbs did their minimal damage to the great voice of friendship that reached across the darkness and kept me moving forward to the days in which I could climb the steps, swinging open the door of my personal bomb shelter, flooding everything with light again.

The day begins, the music is almost subliminal. But then with a great power, it happens. There is nothing that can stop it. The outside wakes up, and the land will grow with a vengeance that cannot be stopped now. The greens will share gentle and a variety of shades, that later, as protection will darken knowing that what is ahead, a few more days must be strived for.

Photo by Susanne Alexander on Unsplash

The sun gets warmer and the stratosphere can no longer deliver the ally who comforts me in the darkness. That is okay. With each season comes its particular visitors. 

The be here now mindset has always been a selective one for me. I might be called a fair-weather friend. All I know is that as the leaves break free from the buds on the branches to claim their natural rights, there is always something so familiar and yet something so new. The intensity of sensory appreciation is fully manifest. It is something that for some reason, is a struggle to maintain. As the weeks scroll by ever so quickly, desensitization lies in wait for a gray ambush. It is a battle that must be fought daily so that on the last day I do not look back thinking that it could have been different.

As I stood in that room in Corpus Christi in the Spring of 1996, everything was clarified for me. That of course is the extreme, but an ever-present reminder that it is important to appreciate a warm Summer day, to take in the scene, pause to look at the night sky, to be where I am, and not to worry about where I will be later.

So here today, I yield to the power of the season, promising this time it will be different. 

How Drill and Ceremony saved me

 The General is coming. This is an announcement I have heard many times. From the moment these words were spoken, intensive repetition commenced. Hours of duplicating every step taken, every word shouted, every head turn and every order to present arms. It was out of this, that a large group of many would become one synchronized machine. Every heel hitting the ground would sharply thunder. Every move made would snap with precision. Words became one voice. The General would arrive, and in a 60-second choreographed production, the hours of work would meet their goal. He expected nothing less. Nothing could ever go wrong. This is the art and curse of Drill and Ceremony.

I have pulled my fair share of fire-guard too. In a military barracks, no one dies in a fire because there is never a chance for the fire to go undetected. Beginning at 9 PM, 1-hour shifts begin, in which one person per floor is assigned to walk the halls, making sure that no dangers arise as the rest of the unit sleeps. When one guard comes to the end of his hour shift, he awakens his relief, and this goes on until wake-up comes at the god-forsaken hour of 4 AM. Not only is this a 100 % guarantee of people's safety as they sleep, but it is also the perfect training vehicle for just about every type of guard duty that soldier will encounter ahead. It is mastery through regimen and repetition.

For me, all of this type of experience happened when I was 24. I had been living a life of making minute to minute decisions and that is a characteristic that has followed me through the decades. I admit it is much more watered down, thanks to no longer being in my 20's and also lack of alcohol, but I still am a "non-planner" in some ways.

I am grateful that I did have this regimined style of life though for 10 years because it has given me something to pull from the toolset and use when I need to. While certain tasks may seem like no-brainers in a book, on YouTube and in theory, there is a world of difference in the tasking it out.

That is critically true in matters such as, backpacking, camping, public speaking and cooking. In the last quarter century I have quite the resume of cooking wins and losses. One may think that no matter what I do, I will have a higher degree of success even on a bad day respectively. But failure comes in many forms when it comes to cooking. 

Typically, flavor is the one place that someone with 25 years of mad-scientist like experience should not encounter much. I am happy to report, I am pretty good here, although I can make the mistake at times of not tasting along the way because of being distracted with meeting time goals and that can cause flavors to start going off course. 

Texture is also something that must be checked in on at inception and later on, in taste testing. Asthetics too, it should look delicious, not just taste delicious.

Just because an entire genre does something a certain way, that does not mean that it is made in the shade at home. Environment and tools account for much. I learned this lesson yesterday. I am about to deploy a significant cooking mission. I am doing Korean barbeque for roughly a dozen diners. It is Korean tradition to use beef brisket for the super thin portions of beef that are placed on the fire or grill and cooked by the diners themselves. 

I cut the brisket as seen in a video in which the chef was processing the brisket for use in Korean Barbeque. I partially froze the meat so that I could slice thinner. Of course in the video, they had a commercial meat slicer like those used at the deli. I could not achieve anywhere close to this thinness. Any Texan knows there is a reason that smoked brisket is smoked low and slow. That meat is seriously tough.

Thank goodness for those seemingly ridiculous days doing Drill and Ceremony for hours on end so that some ego-centric General could walk or drive by us in a matter of seconds or minutes. Yesterday, I did my D&C and I am so thankful that I did. The beef brisket turned the meal into a chewing festival. I don't need to tell you that this level of mistake compared to what my diners are expecting would had been an epic failure for me.

I could not help but think, thank goodness for all those years doing those stupid drills. I have been testing and practicing for this even for a week now. I have learned a great deal. I have a long way to go. Every public cooking event I take on, is never without important lessons learned or the epiphany of realizing a better way.

I don't know yet what I will do to replace the brisket, but thanks to what I did yesterday, I did not make this terrible error. 

2000 Mistakes

 Remember those wonderful Bob Ross shows we used to watch on PBS? When Bob decided that the scene needed some "happy little trees" in the background, he seemingly waved the brush over the canvas with a scribble motion and the trees came to life. It was always a joy to watch. 

I never aspired to paint,  sparing myself from wondering if I could reach such a pinnacle. But there were things in my life that I did wish to achieve such proficiency.  Playing guitar was one of those things, but the time commitment that takes is significant. The last time I had that kind of time was in 1986. I am ok with this. In fact, I feel I am not done with that side of my creativity.

In 1999, in Junction City, Kansas I experienced my first most amazing meal ever. As I sat there with five of my friends, I never imagined that I could reach any kind of culinary achievement. Three years later, on a completely different planet, I set out to make my first spinach artichoke dip. This Saturday-kitchen-devouring mission was all-consuming. It also had the cleanup effort requirement of an oil tanker spill.

2,000 mistakes and misfires brought about 50,000 wins and knowledge that others have tried to pay for yet never received. I have always been the make-something-out-of-nothing guy, and learning to cook was all that for me.

I've had very good inspiration. Yes, in popular culinary media, there are ways to pick up this or that. My true inspiration came from people who I spent important times in my life with. My Dad always had this incredible drive to not follow any known paths, letting his curiosity, and need for a specific taste right then and there lead the way. Late one Saturday night, when the Family Center had the excellent idea to market cast iron frying pans, with a dozen eggs and a pound of bacon, shrink-wrapped together. It was too tempting. That led to a late-night culinary expedition that started with those ingredients and became so much; the food, the conversation, the creativity, and old stories.

Another inspiration comes from my friend Nick. He was raised in restaurants. It is in his DNA. The unique thing about Nick is, he has the same, make something from nothing mentality. We shared a Gulf War deployment over 30 years ago. With limited resources, obtained through others by questionable means, I watched his limitless creativity in full force. Just like me, just like my father, Nick has let his desire to see what the possibilities can be, fire his culinary drive.

In the 25 years of expanding my culinary ambitions, I have learned something amazing. The more I do this the easier it gets. The 22-year-old spinach artichoke dip now can be made anywhere, anytime, and you could have a conversation with me as I make it and barely notice that I am working on something this significant. I could make it, in my kitchen, I could make it with a chicken, I could make it here or there, I could make it anywhere.

That is nothing compared to what happens when time and complexity demands are placed on me. Just like working out regularly, I am building strength and confidence that I can do more than I ever knew. Complex, choreographed, large-group cooking adventures are now possible and enjoyable.  There is a pleasant side effect to this escalation of complex cooking ability. Making something on those nights when we have no idea what to make or where to start.  Now, there are always possibilities. Out of all of the benefits, it is interesting to me that the most basic benefit is the greatest one of all.

Democracy is coming

 It's coming from the feel

That it ain't exactly real

Or it's real, but it ain't exactly there

-Leonard Cohen, Democracy 1992

It has been like that lately. There are many points of focus and there are distractions too. Echos of Another Earth seem normal these days. I hesitated to make popcorn one day because I knew where that could lead. I knew it needed to be done, and that symbolically, it represents my whole business plan.  Like Ike and Tina knocking out Proud Mary, it starts out nice and easy, and then...well you know.

I heard others talk about it. They got their cooking out into the open and then it took on a life of its own. I acknowledge that what I have is just a small flame that could easily be blown out with a gust of wind, and I also understand that it could start a wildfire.

It is the escalation that I want to understand. I know that in any undiscovered country, there are things that simply do not count. It is through the making of simple mistakes that the greatest education comes. Balancing the learning exercises while navigating around the sinkholes of needless time sucks is what takes discernment.

I made Kimchi this weekend. I have made Kimchi for many years now. I have been pretty consistent in doing so. Last time, right around the beginning of this year, I changed things up due to gaining more education, I decided to move out of my comfort zone. In doing so, I made some of the best kimchi I have ever made. 4 months later, my perception of how I made this was somewhat distorted. For the first time, I made a batch of kimchi that I didn't like. As far as I am concerned it is way out of balance.

Because this is for a project I am working on, I will need to make another quickly. <sigh>

I spent most of the weekend working in the kitchen, reading and testing. I changed up the music, most interestingly a Partridge Family playlist. I have some extremely diverse playlists (excluding country of course) for cooking. This was particularly fun although I think it is a once in so many years sort of thing.

Mixing things up is what it is all about though. The thing that made January's Kimchi so good was adding miso paste to it, which definitely crosses some lines. For my up-and-coming project which leans heavily in a Korean direction, I am creating a sweet and savory miso sauce for the palate that does not want spice. Again, mixing it up. Blurring the lines is what is happening here. I can feel the definition, it is significant. Like the revealing of a host of new planets, we are crossing a threshold. In the hour before sunrise, I can only imagine what the landscape looks like. 

It is knowing what needs to happen and what can be avoided. Knowing me, despite my best efforts, you will probably catch me hammering a few square pegs into round holes, it is unavoidable. Again, my friend Leonard said it best:

"But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
That time cannot decay
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
This little wild bouquet"

1985 Chapter 7 column right!

 The daily use of Dad's car continued. I drove the truck to work once or twice, but there was always something that made me feel that it was not quite as dependable. The crop-dusting cloud of burning oil behind it as I climbed the bridge of the causeway into Flour Bluff didn't help either. 

Photo by Trac Vu on Unsplash

It seemed like life would be going like this indefinitely, well until the "turnarounds" which were the 12 hours on 12 hours off days just before the new section of the refinery started up for the first time.   

Working every day now for months with Jeri was a tug of war of wills. He was fire-testing every aspect of what made me who I was, and I did my best to defy in passive-aggressive areas in which I could get away with it. Of course, work was one thing, he was my fitter and I needed to follow his instructions. I pulled out the stops of my youth put some frustration into the work and used it as a drive to make things happen. He noticed this, and I was starting to understand what it took to succeed in work like this. From that point, I knew that it is not easy, you just have to fight to win every moment.

Socially however, it seemed as though I was still 13 years old, sitting in the Franco-American club, sipping on ice-filled glasses with 3 molecules of Coca-Cola in them undergoing the drilling of my mother's boyfriend Richard of how I needed to buckle down and make something of myself now. I was programmed to defend myself by offending the dealer of this wisdom. The shock value of my decision to do the opposite frustrated and bewildered them. Looking back, I feel bad for them because their hearts were in the right place. I also feel bad for myself, because undoing such poor behavior took so long to deconstruct.

Despite all, I loved Jeri. He was a mentor to me. I felt bad about one day during lunch. There was a little shack about a mile from the refinery where we sometimes got a lunch sandwich. When we got our food, the Chrysler would not start. Jeri slid under the car to jump the starter with a screwdriver. I closed the heavy driver's door, not knowing that his hand was where the door and the fender met, crushing his finger. Several minutes of screaming in pain and walking around in circles followed. I felt so awful.

At home, Dad's focus on family was so acute, that he reminded me of the steady and stern father I knew when I was 5. I arrived home on the island one night and he reported that Little Jimmy, the first person I ever met in Port A had gotten abruptly done working for the Public Works department. He said that if I moved fast, there would be no doubt, I could secure that job and end the over 100 miles of driving I was doing every day.

I was a shoo-in for the position. The months I had spent in the refinery were a gift. Had I just gone from sitting home playing guitar like I did the last quarter of last year, and then going to work for the City of Port Aransas, I probably would have not adjusted so well. Fortunately, I spent 4 months in a rough neighborhood with 100's of other construction workers. Working for the city was nearly like coming home. I did have to learn to drive larger trucks, tractors, and other equipment, but the social aspect was good. I would get to learn the machinery. Other than that, I was still a clueless 19-year-old. Right turn.

The Standoff

 I almost fell for it. The storm of time had pounded the resolve that I grasped like a sunken post during a tornado. I was happy with my determination to hold on. What I did not count on is the cunning deception that whispers about the miles walked, the struggles fought, and watching the surroundings rust around me. They were used like chess pieces slowly moving into position to prepare for the strike. I was the one with my hand on the handle of the airlock. It was then something went off inside my brain, shaking me into what was really happening.

Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

It was the pain that woke me. The very thing that has pursued me for two decades saves me from surrendering to my greatest adversary, time. The irony knocks me back a few steps, but then I remember all those times declaring that my pain was my trophy. I call that my "put up or shut up moment."

I never surrendered to the modern-day cookie-cutter, reactionary life in the way that seems to the masses like the only way. No, as it rained swords from the sky, I have figured out how to not buy the garbage they promote and deflect, redirect, and eliminate those missiles from dealing their pugnacious dominance. What did I have on my side? It was my hunger to know every possibility, not to mention the endless row of towers that sweet sound can be heard from a hundred thousand windows. 

The key was to never look outside. I indeed heard the news today, oh boy, and it wasn't good. Then again, it never is, is it? Why look? They only want to tell you what to think, how to feel, and who you are. I know better. I do this at my pace, my way. I will be the one to decide where in the game I really am. Period.

The thin line between hiking and cooking

 I knew I should have prepped the cabbage last night. Instead of razor-thin shavings of bright green cabbage, I opened the cooler and there they were, two green bowling balls without the holes. But, hey, I am good with a knife. I am not stupid-fast, more like efficient. I got this.

My one-hour lunch excursion into the culinary burst of what I view Fight4Taste to mean could happen. Right? All along there was a song playing in the background, come on Gen-X sing it if you know it..."A THREE HOUR TOURRRRRRRR!"

Once the cabbage is shredded, it is evident I am in that episode of the Twilight Zone in which time is moving at 6 times its natural speed. I note to myself, that the next time my hands are clean, there is an important call that I need to make. I step off the curb to work on the rest of the build and then, I am again transported 37 minutes into the future.

If I were home, the projections meet the reality and simply translate into a hungry family eating later, a kitchen being cleaned later, going to bed later, and perpetual tiredness. All in the name of a fantastic meal. Oh, and the learning thingy. That part is moderate when you are in your own kitchen.

When I set foot in a public kitchen, I unpack and in short order, I set out to put something great to waiting diners, it is so different. Every unanticipated tactile experience burns the fingertips. It is like steering a very large lifeboat with oars that are the wrong size. I know I can do it, but my mind is spinning like a computer that is running models of every potential move, mapping out the best move to make next.

As I crossed the finish line, the signs of what I should have done differently jumped out at me like giant billboards that were brightly lit and could not be missed. It was then I thought, this reminds me of something.

When you get to fill a backpack with everything you think you need, for an overnight backpacking trip after what feels like years of study, you think you have anticipated everything. There is no way that there could be a great need for something you did not think of. But, the black forest at night declares its dominance and declares otherwise. It is then, that you are small. You are disadvantaged. Most importantly, you are learning, and absorbing lessons with a porousness like you have never known.

Cooking for others in a public kitchen is just like that. What I can absorb is incredible. It actually amazes me. It makes sense that I love the pressure of it because in doing so my eyes are wide open. There is no safety net, just me and the finish line, period.

The silent warnings

 I woke up in the morning. The gravity was inconsequential. I stepped out onto the porch and looked off into the distance and I owned the land as far as I could see. It was mine and it always would be mine. I went out and navigated my day. I saw it but did not see it. All of the people around me were dealing with challenges and realities that were different from mine. They were not the same.

The advice of the previous generation was offered heavily and I did not understand why they thought they needed to give it. I was different and they could not see it. Walking down the road confidently I would suddenly hear a man speaking. His words spiked doom inside me because I knew that he used to own the land I now called my own. 

Photo by Ashlee Brown on Unsplash

As time passed, I met more of these travelers frequently. I learned to respect them. I also realized that I had been seeing them all along. They had been in my life all along, but I was tuned into an arrogant frequency. The foolishness of youth supported my ignorance.

I remember running the annual Army Physical Training test every October down at Morningside. My defiance was so blatant that I actually carried a cigarette and lighter one year so I could run across the finish line, smoking. Mortal stupidity wished to rub in the faces of those who were further down the road of life from me that I could be an idiot. No matter what I thought, I could do nothing to force them to accept my self-inflicted lie.

I woke up this morning, and the gravity was much heavier. I slowly walked out onto the porch and looked out over the railing and I could only see a couple of feet over it. Even that would be gone soon unless I took drastic measures. The fact is, I was warned about this, and I was not listening.

1985: Chapter 6: Let's drive that old Ford to Mexico boys

With the addition of Brooke to the household, things did shift. When we did want to go out for a beer we did less Sail Club and Gaff. We began to frequent Mariner's Inn on the beach. Everyone still called it Beach Lodge because that is what it had been as long as it had been there previously.

The Inn was owned by a couple from Wisconsin, Rick and Sherrill. They were wonderful people. Sitting at what was perceived as the main table with them was more like a kitchen table in a big house with a large family. It was that warm and as a result, this became a regular stop. Tom from Island Retreat would hike through the dunes and also hang out with us as well as our neighbor Jim, who worked at the University of Texas. 

The hours of conversations that happened at that table were wonderful. It was a group of people from many different places in the world all congregating here as friends. A Lone Star Beer long neck was $1.25 and we always carried our darts with us. There was no air conditioning in Mariner's. It enjoyed that offshore breeze that kept the air moving and several ceiling fans working overhead.

Towards the tail end of Spring Break, Dad, Brooke and I went down to Mariners around 1 p.m. on a Saturday. We were joined by Harry and Steve. Steve was a core member of the Sunday Morning Gentleman's Club, our Sunday morning dart games at the house. Harry, who lived over in Rockport, frequently came over to play.

We were all sitting around the table and it was pretty harmless. At some point, however, it seemed like Steve may have argued with his wife, which explained why Harry picked him up and got him out of the house. Other than the dart games on Sunday, Steve never left the house.

Then Steve said the words that dissolved the group at the table and set into motion a very crazy idea: "Hey, let's go to Mexico."

Dad looked at Steve like he had lost his mind. Harry just about jumped out of his chair to go. I, at 19, who did not get to go to Costa Rica suddenly saw an opportunity to go to this wild and crazy place I had only heard stories about, I was in. 

Let me just say that my ability to make intelligent decisions was next to nothing at this point. I was so spontaneous and someone just laid out an adventure. I volunteered to drive and not drink another drop of alcohol until we reached Mexico. Drinking and driving was still legal in Texas in 1985. You could legally drive, with an open container but God help you if your blood alcohol was over the legal limit. I was certain that Harry and Steve would likely drink all the way to Mexico.

When I asked Dad to come, he made it clear to me that there was no way he was going. He even pointed out to me that maybe I should not go. He reminded me who I was going with. Steve was the guy who would fall asleep on the couch while his two-year-old son was randomly walking around the neighborhood 2 1/2 blocks away.  Harry had so many DWIs that he served time in the state pen at Huntsville last year. He was the one who made the front page of the Toast of the Coast Herald last year. A photo of officers trying to cuff him and him waving his fist in the air at the paper cameraman as he kept screaming, "I'll remember you!!"Above the photo a bold headline: "MEMORIES". Deep down inside, I was wondering if I was going to end up in one of those Mexican jails I had heard so much about. But, I just had to go.

We left Mariner's Inn. There was still a lot of activity on the beach so driving on it was stop and go. Dad and Brooke were in the Chrysler in front of us, and Harry, Steve, and I were in Harry's 1970 blue and white Ford pickup. I was sitting in the middle between Harry and Steve. As the beach traffic kept stopping, Harry thought he would be funny and started racing the truck and making it jump up close to the back of Dad's car. I could feel my Dad's annoyance back here in the vehicle behind his. This was a mistake.

The one thing I knew about my father was it was never a good idea to call his bluff. He would make you own whatever was used to mess with him. Harry persisted in his antagonizing by stomping on the gas pedal and bouncing up right behind the Chrysler, stopping just inches from it. The traffic line moved and we stayed back as Harry shifted the truck back into 1st, revving the engine, making his intentions known.  I kept warning him. "You know he is going to rub your face in this Harry, you should know better." Harry, obviously a person who did not know how to learn from his mistakes just laughed.

The retaliation suddenly came, in the form of backup lights on the Chrysler. Dad stomped the gas pedal of that 440 and it screamed through its way undersized glass pack muffler. The car lurched towards us and made contact with a crash. Dad kept the pressure on. Harry thought he could push back with the truck but that was like trying to push an oil tanker, it was no match. The rear tires of the truck just spun in the sand. This demonstration of opposing force lasted for what seemed like a couple of minutes. As we sat in the seat of the truck, I noticed that our view was transitioning from a straight-on look at the back window of Dad's car to the roof to more of the sky. Harry had buried the truck up to the body at the back wheels. 

Dad, seeing that he had made his point, took off like a rocket and left us there on the beach, in the middle of the roadway where there was a line of cars behind us. We were angled as if we were going to launch into space on a vertical trajectory.  Realizing that since I was riding with these two, I was going to need to help them dig the truck out. "Satisfied?" I looked at Harry. He laughed his crazy laugh, he loved this. Yeah, going to Mexico with a guy who was on the outs with his wife and this guy tonight. I started to think, I am so going to Mexican jail.

We briefly stopped back at the house, mostly to get music, I cannot deal with lots of miles and no music. I kept getting the "this is a bad idea vibe" off of Dad. Of course, mindless 19-year-old, and zero dollars in my pocket, I was going to do this.

In 1985, this was about a 4 hour drive since it would be another year and a half before the federal government decided to repeal the 55-mile-an-hour national speed limit that had been in effect since 1973. The road from Corpus to Laredo is a long lonely one. We talked and listened to the music that I brought. Of course, Steve and Harry drank from a cooler that was in the bed of the truck and wiped out the better part of a bag of pot. I could never be bothered with that stuff, I never cared for it. In Port Aransas, that and a 12 pack were the most common legal tender on the island.

As we drove west towards Mexico, the sunset and the most amazing moon rose from the horizon. I recall it was one of the most beautiful moons I have ever seen. We made a quick stop in Laredo to eat at a Mcdonalds drive-thru, then drove across the international border. I noticed the Mexican border agent just waved hello and smiled at us as we drove through his booth. That surprised me a bit, I always thought entering another country would be more complicated. I was unaware that the real trick was getting back into the United States.

It was definitely a shock entering into Nuevo Laredo. We went from one large city, and immediately right into another, but more 20 years ago and more post-apocalyptic. The potholes in the roads were larger than the truck we drove, people drove so much more aggressively. I told Harry that I needed him to drive because I did not want to be responsible for damaging his truck and at this point, some kind of damage seemed inevitable. 

He told me where to go and we ended up in a parking lot of a rough-looking 2 story motel. It reminded me of something you might see in Beirut in the movies. We got a room for like $15 US. The exchange rate at this time was 4100 pesos to 1 US dollar. Once we secured that we headed back out to the street and got a cab, by which I mean a 1968 Plymouth Valiant that barely had an exhaust and a suspension that was seriously fatigued from the ridiculous conditions of the roads. The driver drove it hard, like a Chicago Cab driver would. You could tell he was not worried that he could potentially fly the car apart. Harry and Steve seemed to know exactly where we were going. I just went with the flow. I did notice as we navigated the city, Federales with automatic weapons were everywhere. 

When we arrived at the club we were attending I could not help but notice, like so many properties in this area, it was surrounded by 6 to 10-foot concrete walls, except this one, when they poured the walls, they placed glass liquor bottles upside down and then after they dried, the bottles were broken leaving jagged glass across the tops of the walls. This was designed to keep people in just as much as it was to keep people out.

I had no money, I was not sure what Harry had, and Steve had a pocket full. This was ironic because Steve did not work, only his wife did. Once we got inside it was clear that even though the alcohol was flowing, alcohol was their second best-selling commodity. There was no doubt in my mind, that alcohol was as far as this went for me, I had heard too many awful stories about these ill-fated trips over the border. Steve bought me a beer, and in a short time, he disappeared. Harry was talking to different people. A man sat at our table and started talking with me. He was a middle-weight boxer. We had a long conversation and I actually felt better hanging out with him in a place with glass-topped barrier walls and Federales outside with rifles.

I was not very old, but I was already developing expedient survival skills in thick situations, a skill I would really develop later on. Steve arrived back at the table, he was different. A very dark case of regret and obviously buyer's remorse had set in.  On the ride back to the motel he was lamenting out loud about coming down here, leaving his wife at home, taking the money, everything was a disaster. I would not want to be him for anything.

He was difficult to be around, so Harry and I walked away from him as he headed into the motel room. We hit the streets of Nuevo Laredo. It was about 2 AM. The city was alive, people everywhere, some in the light, many others just inside the shadows of doorways and alleys, all seeming suspicious of us, Federales also looking at us, waiting for the reason. The city was so broken everywhere, the roads, the sidewalks, the faces of the buildings. At one time all of this was new, and now years of neglect were everywhere. The night was hot and full of fumes from cars and food.

We walked into this little shop that was bright with yellow light, fans blew loudly, and skinned animal carcasses (allegedly goat) hung from the ceiling.  We sat down at a little square table in the middle of the shop, as we seemed to be the attraction of those people sitting in the perimeter seats.  We ordered two Carta Blanca beers and Harry ordered tacos.

He talked and talked, the whole time eating like he was Andrew Zimmerman.  Beer after beer, taco after taco, and an hour passed. He kept offering me the goat taco but I held up my hand, "Oh, I'm good, I ate at McDonalds, what, only 8 hours ago?" At this point in my life, I was very closed-minded when it came to food. Pizza at the time was non-existent on the island, which I would have eaten frequently so that only left McDonald's when off the island and Whataburger the rest of the time. That was how I rolled back then. I was not about to eat a taco when they waved the flies off the raw meat hanging from the ceiling before putting it on the fire. Nope.

When we neared the two-hour mark, I really started to grow concerned.  "Did Steve give you any money?" I asked Harry. He shook his head no. "How much do you have?" I carefully asked. He reached into his pocket, "11 dollars." I told Harry that I appreciated the several beers I had, but with all the food he had eaten, we were either going to do dishes and mop the floors or the more likely outcome. The proprietor would bring in the Federale who was standing in the street just outside the door, and we would go to jail. Harry, was nothing short of amused and irreverent. He just shrugged his shoulders and kept shoveling those insane tacos into his face. He loved this.

Finally, he had enough, and he said, "Let's get out of here." He asked the man at the counter how much, $7.75. Obviously, Harry knew we were fine all along. I was absolutely stunned at the cost of this outing. We walked back through the dark streets, up to our room, and went to sleep.

Because Steve was so full of remorse when the sun rose, he was like a drill sergeant, making us get up and get moving. No coffee in Mexico, and no breakfast either, he wanted us on the road. We quickly got down to the truck, got in, and headed for the Laredo border.

There was no nice smiling American border patrol person waving at us as we went by. No, in fact, they thought it was a good idea if we pulled off to the side into one of their more intensive inspection areas. We had to leave the truck and sit in a holding area. They took off door panels and checked under the truck and under the hood too. After something like an hour, we were allowed to return to the truck and enter the US. We went right to the McD's to get a coffee and then travel that long barren road back to the Coastal Bend. Steve was super quiet, Harry and I listened to music and talked about it the whole way.

When we pulled into Avenue J, my Dad was pleased I made it home. The only casualty for me was the Wings At the Speed of Sound tape. Harry's tape deck ate it. Steve had sold this trip as showing me the ways of the world, not that I would be so foolish as to accept that, but in the end, I learned that this was about his own selfish impulse. It was deep enough for me at 19 to pull a significant life lesson from.

I am thankful that his life was not mine. They later that year moved off the island and later that year his wife and son went to the store for milk and bread and never returned. She drove until she was at her parent's house in Pennsylvania, rightly so too.

Harry was an interesting person to spend time with, he knew the rules and and knew them better than he let on. He always made it seem like all caution was disregarded, but to some degree, it was a façade. Later that year he had a girlfriend named Linda. She would come around to the Sunday Morning Gentlemen's Club dart games we held. Our friend Bob for some reason did not like her. She had been all over the world, living in tents, Peace Corps in Africa, and who knows where else. Bob always called her Bazimba. Never figured out what the deal was.

 

1985 - Chapter 5: The learning season

 I did not know it at the time, but the breakdown of my vehicle was one of those events that exploded in slow motion regarding how it affects other things in your life. Through the grapevine, I had heard that a person I knew on the island had a 73 Dodge pickup for sale for $75. I bought it promptly. 

I had never bought a vehicle before. The couple of days leading up to picking it up were full of imagining how awesome it was going to be. My $75 purchase to me was a $2000 purchase of what I was expecting. As Dad and I sat at the kitchen table in the evenings, I talked about what I was going to do. Dad mentioned that since the transmission only had 2nd and 3rd gear, we could pull it out, bring it to Tom's Auto and he could weld the shift fork inside the transmission. That is what Cliff suspected the issue was.  No 1st and reverse was not really a big deal to him. Port Aransas was a small island that was also flat. He never saw a reason to deal with it. I wish I had felt the same way.

"What is the first thing you will do when you get the truck, Mike?" Dad asked me as though he was interrogating me. "Put a stereo in." He smacked the palm of his hand on the table, "No! You are going to check those universal joints!" I felt stupid for not thinking of that. He was right. My not taking the importance of these things seriously cost me a lot. At this point, I had no idea how much.

I picked up the truck on Thursday.  Dad told me to make sure of some basic things. At one point, he noticed a poor connection issue like a loose terminal or corrosion. He wisely told me that I needed to go over the secondary ignition system, battery, starter, relay, and cables and make sure all connections were clean and tight.

Friday night, we took the truck out and went out for a beer at the Gaff. Having only 2nd and 3rd gear and this being my first standard, I stalled it, a lot. When the truck would not start multiple times because the connections were so loose and dirty that the battery was not getting a charge from the alternator, and my Dad had to get out to push the truck each time to have me pop the clutch to get it started, by the third time he was so angry, it was a good thing he had never been exposed to an excess of gamma radiation.  

There are some things you do as a kid in which your parent's reaction "fixes" you for the rest of your life. Here at 19 years old, this was one of those times. He was so mad that he told me to clean the connections and here he was having to push the truck on the flat ground repeatedly because I did not listen and because I could not drive a standard. I was maybe 120 pounds, he could push the truck better than I could. For lessons sake, he did have me push it a time or two. Needless to say, he drove the point home about cleaning and tightening electrical connections. It was one of those moments like learning from your father when he simply asks you to hold a flashlight when he is trying to do something.

That weekend, I removed the driveshaft and pulled the transmission, with Dad's help, and brought it over to Tom's shop. A couple days later we stopped in for a beer and Tom had the transmission in a hundred pieces on the bench. It was not the shift forks, there were broken parts throughout and the transmission needed a full rebuild. It would be better to just get another from a junkyard.

The day we had waited for came in which Brooke arrived at the airport and she began her life with us in Port Aransas. We were so excited to have her come home, we had her room all set and she started school right off. She instantly made friends with so many people and just as was evident last month when she visited with Grandma, Brooke was perfect for Port Aransas.

The quest for a transmission for the truck began to get weird. It turns out, back in the '70s, Mopar had contracted parts for their trucks out to smaller manufacturers and there were actually many different 3-speed transmissions out there. Because of that, different size driveshafts, cross members, and splines were involved. I bought a transmission for $15 from someone, but it was twice as long as the one in the truck. What I should have done was bring my driveshaft to Corpus Christi Driveshaft and had one altered to make it work, but this type of problem was above my abilities at the time. I am sure I drove my father nuts by just talking about options all of the time.

There were so many junk yards in Corpus back in those days. I went from one muddy junkyard to another. It seemed like it took a month of searching. 11 years later that seems like 30 years gone by, and I will be here again, and for much more serious and devastating reasons. I finally found a transmission that was the exact same as the one that came out of the truck, it was painted safety orange and cost $150. We were all along expecting to pay about $50. That was met by a "you paid what?" moment with my father when I returned home with it. There were three of us in the house now and he was expecting me to help out at least a little with expenses as I had promised I would way back last summer when I convinced him that we needed to move out of the little cottage.

As the years have gone by, I have worked on vehicles, every aspect of them, engine, driveline, electronic, body, interior, you name it. Back here in 85, I was in my automotive repair infancy. I had a great consultant, but my confidence was null. I did not understand that when you work on mechanical things like this, it is a test of wills and that the only way to succeed, is to win that test. Not understanding this, anything I did with this truck took many times longer than it should have. In fact, I spent more time talking about what I was doing than actually doing it.

Once the transmission was in and a floor shifter was installed, I took it to work only to realize this thing leaked a great deal of oil. I set my sights on doing the oil pan gasket. I fought and fought with it, cut myself, whined, and complained. Finally, my Dad having heard this constant complaining, told me to follow him.  He was calm. He went outside, slid under the truck, took the motor mount nut off, put a hydraulic jack and block of wood under the crank pully, lifted the engine 2 inches, and slid the oil pan out. He counted the connecting rod bolts (I had found one in the oil pan and was spinning out because of it). Everything was where it should be.  He told me, that installation was the reverse of the removal and went back into the house.

I learned so much more than just the mechanical part of this. He let me complain and then just showed me how to take action and how simple that was imprinted in my brain a starting point that would help me from this point on. To this day, I don't know how he tolerated my complaining and overreaction, but he did and did it so well.

The truck always seemed to have some reason why it could not be my commuting vehicle. The long daily drives with the Chrysler with the big block 440 in it continued, meanwhile, spring break ravaged the island.

Brooke meshed into life at Port Aransas High School in a way that said still yet again, she was meant to be here. She made friends with people in her class immediately and at the time, became best friends with a girl named Sandy whom I met at the Gaff on that night we celebrated my father's birthday back in December. The night her stepfather was threatening to physically harm me if I did not get up from the table.

Brooke just fell into our "modified" routine with ease. I say modified because I was pretty much the same, but Dad on the other hand, had shifted even more into the responsible, calm, and focussed father, now that he had a 15-year-old daughter to look out for. It was remarkable. I was beginning to understand why everyone had pulled me aside last year and told me how incredibly my father had changed because I was also now seeing it happen even more so. Do not misunderstand, he was still Joe, but the calmer side in him cooked off a lot longer now and he was certainly above so much of the drama that he would not have ignored in the past.

I arrived in Port Aransas last year at the end of June. The months that followed were acclimation and getting to know my Dad and him getting to know me. Once 1985 came, the theme changed. 85 was the year I was fire-tested, in every way possible. I had missed a bunch of lessons growing up because my father was not with us. This year, I entered a crash course to make up for lost time. Work, auto-mechanics, and life, the reckoning was coming and there was nothing I could do about it except go through it all. It was only just beginning.

1985, Chapter 4: The Great Dodge space time disaster

*Note: This story appears earlier in this blog as a stand-alone entry. Because it shares such an important event in March of 1985 and a turning point, I could not leave it out of the 1985 story.

 It was affectionately known as 18 Mile Road. It ran north-south from Mustang Island to Padre Island in the South Texas Gulf Coast. Officially called Park Road 53 back then and today is known as Texas Highway 361.  I recall being on it for the first time in June of 1984.  There, a little south of Beach Access Road 1A, a large billboard screamed a happy message:  "Welcome to Miller Time!" Framed in fluorescent palm trees. Then in much smaller letters at the bottom of the full-size billboard, it helpfully added, “ and Port Aransas”. The sign sat like a guardian to the island I called home on a long 18-mile stretch of sand that had the Corpus Christi ship channel to the west and the vast Gulf of Mexico to the east. 

Here, now, I was getting acquainted personally with the 18-mile road as I walked along it picking up pieces of shrapnel with Mopar serial numbers on them, then also an entire driveshaft that will never pull duty again. I messed up.

The irony is, there was another driveshaft with a front universal joint on it sitting in the trunk of my now very damaged 72 red and black Dodge Dart. I had let it coast as far as it could after the violent storm that had ripped apart the underside of the car minutes earlier.

I would learn that this one simple thing had single-handedly cut two big holes under the floor of the front seat. Smashed open the tail shaft housing and bent the output shaft of the transmission. Broke the exhaust, and sent metal through the power steering pump and radiator. Something really bad did happen today after all. The odd thing was, I knew something was waiting today. Don’t get me wrong, this is not some weird auto mechanics 6th sense, although, in the years that followed, I can boast some car whispering credentials. No this was something else. There are just a few days and even sometimes minutes when a person stands on the brink of two forevers, completely encased in fog. You don’t really know that the tracks you are standing on are the switch, but to your very core, you can feel it. Time has gravity. I have felt this gravity manifest itself in three peculiar ways. The first, when something is about to literally explode and you are right there, time happens in choppy sort of photo frames. I believe this is because our senses naturally activate to a magnified super level that allows us to see microseconds expanded so we can read them. The second gravity time displays is the weird conduits it can draw. Noah was in the PICU in 2009 not being able to breathe, again the first time gravity was at play here too, then the conduit to my Dad telling me about not being able to breathe. It brought Noah to 1996 and my Dad to 2009. I then existed in not one time at a time, but strangely all of them at once.

The third gravity of time is what was happening on this day, March 4th, 1985. This is when you are on a pivotal day and you can feel the gravity of your different life pulling at you and the gravity of the life you have been living pulling you the other way. It is an odd but unmistakable feeling.

Something was different. For two months, I have been working in an oil refinery in Northwest Corpus Christi, on the Corpus Christi Bay. I was an instrument fitter's helper working under my dad‘s lifelong friend Jeri. The days were long and cold. Working high off the ground in hard hats and safety harnesses. Sometimes as high as 263 feet off the ground. There were fires and explosions, and the company put a $1 million life insurance policy on you when you began working there. This was a fact but I tried not to let bother me. Even though Jeri had at any given moment anywhere from 12 to 20 cars parked in his yard, I always drove my 1972 Dodge Dart with a slant six motor making it the most economical vehicle out of any that we had between us. 

 I woke up at 1:15 a.m. in my Port Aransas Texas home. I was due to pick up Jeri in Flour Bluff around 6 a.m. on my way to the refinery. Port Aransas is on Mustang Island which is in the Gulf of Mexico just north of South Padre Island Texas. It was always a very long drive to work, but back in those days, you had to do what you had to do. That morning I could feel that something was different. I was on the precipice of change although a very involuntary one.

 I wrote a piece that morning over my cup of coffee called, “Taking What is at Hand”. 

Around 5 a.m. I headed south on Mustang Island on the long dark 18 Mile Road that led to South Padre Island. When Jeri got into the car I told him that I felt like I had stepped out of bed and into the Twilight Zone this morning. Something very good or very bad is going to happen today. Unfortunately, my money was on something bad. After all, I worked as high as 263 ft off the ground and it was not exactly out of the ordinary to have accidental explosions happen at the refinery. Gravity was everything. 

Amazingly the whole day went by and nothing out of the ordinary happened. Driving away from the refinery and out onto South Padre Island Drive I breathed a sigh of relief believing that I was in the clear. I was just a weird 19-year-old with a lack of sleep and a wild imagination.

Just as I was slowing down for a traffic light however my car began to vibrate really hard. I knew that the front universal joint in my 72 Dodge Dart was close to going. I was going to change it, I really was! I had even bought a used driveshaft with a joint on it from a guy at work for 15 bucks. 

We made it to Jeri's house and normally we would have just jacked up the car and taken care of it with the one I bought.  But Jeri didn't have any tools because they were all in our toolbox at work. we made the heavy-hearted decision that it would probably make it if I took it slow.

People in our income status on the island did not have telephones. Realizing that I was going to have to drive the car back to Port Aransas Jeri wisely told me that when I got to the island I should go to a payphone call person-to-person collect and ask for myself. When he answered he would say that I was not there and he would know that I made it home safely. Anyone my age and older knows that this method of confirming info was standard procedure back in those days. Calling long distance was very pricey.

After picking up the pieces of my car all over Park Road 53, I sat back down in the driver's seat.  The realization that it could be a very long time till I drive this car again and perhaps, maybe never again.  When it is the only car you ever owned, that's huge.  I think it was the shock of the consequences that I felt as I sat there.  The shock wave was still unbelievable.  I worked like 50 miles from where I lived!  

There was more at work here.  I was miserable.  All of my youthful ignorance had been thoroughly taunted, mocked, and challenged.  "My" friends were actually my Dad's friends.  I had made none in the last 7 months that I was here in South Texas.  My days learning how to be an adult working at A Auto Supply last summer did little to break my immature defiance that was facilitated by not having my Dad during the years that I really needed him.

Working in a refinery with a bunch of construction workers as a helper was constantly like a brutal initiation.  It is a painful road to travel.  My cushy little teenage life in which I thought I had it all figured out was being smashed daily in the ring of people lining up to kick my figurative butt into something else.  I will say it was working.  The long drive back to the island gave me time to reflect on myself and slowly, I was turning dials and making adjustments to who I was.  

While working at the refinery, I was bitter and I felt broken.  I wanted to go where I felt like I used to.  Where I felt I had control, oddly, getting drunk and having no control.  I wanted my old life back, at least the fun part.  I never paid attention to what I would actually do with my life.  I was just thinking about Lone Oak Campground, partying with my friends.  As I worked high up on those metal vessels that looked like Mercury rockets with ladders, landings, pipes, and instruments on them, I kept telling myself: "I am doing this for Connecticut.  I am going back."

Of course, in my stupidity, I did not know that this was going to make my life even more pathetic than it already was, or at least how I thought it already was. But this morning, March 4th, 1985, I stood on the edge of two different lives.  I did not know that, but I knew something was amiss.  Yes, Mike, "something very good or very bad" was going to happen to me today. Check. Very bad, right?

It seemed like an hour had passed.  Then I saw it on the horizon.  A dark green storm moving at me at the speed of sound, or so it always seemed. Jeri NEVER drove slow, he totally did not know how to.  He had so many speeding tickets that now when he was getting pulled over, he and his wife would swap seats so that she got the ticket so he would not lose his license.  That one 1965 Chevrolet Super Sport coming at me at a high velocity was coming to my rescue.

Jeri skidded to a stop just ahead of me on the side of the 18-mile road.  His face fell with remorse when I told him about all of the smashed vital components all over the road.  He tied a rope from the back bumper of the 65 to the front bumper of my Dodge and towed me back to Port A on a rope faster than I have ever been towed in a vehicle before.

My first car, sat in the driveway indefinitely broken needing so much work before it would ever see the road again and my life continued.  I had to start driving Dad's 74 Chrysler Town and Country wagon, a loud, rusty, 440 cubic inch motor, 5100-pound monster of a car to work.  It was a $10-a-day trip and in 85 that was stupid money.  

The 18-mile road event was an explosion that set things in motion that from that day on, would not have happened otherwise.  Connecticut could not even be thought about as the Dodge was the only way that could happen.  I bought a 73 Dodge pickup for $75 from Cliff on the island.  It only had 2nd and 3rd gear which would have been fine!  But, the prissy little Connecticut boy in me "needed" 1st and reverse.  Brat!  So I was on a crusade to find a transmission and in 1973, Chrysler contracted these out to small machine shops which made it so there were so many different ones.  The month of looking around South Texas junkyards was amazing like a world of its own.  In the end, I found one for $150 in 1985, and since we were finding others for $15 but they did not fit, was like spending $1800 today.  

My sister Brooke had just moved in with us from Connecticut and there were more expenses.  Until now, I was really bad at assisting Dad with the household expenses, despite telling him that I would when I convinced him to move from his little dune-side cottage that was smaller and cheaper than the old 1950s mobile home that we now lived in that we rented from Jeri.  The million-dollar transmission was a pain point between Dad and me.

The truck leaked a ton of oil, so I had to fix it.  I was not always good at working on cars, and this was during that time.  It took me a stupid amount of weeks to change an oil pan gasket.  I hurt myself and threw plenty of tantrums.  My respect for my father runs very deep here.  He was quietly patient, but should probably have backhanded me several times to set me right.

The morning after I cut my knuckle open on the side of the sharp oil pan, it had gotten infected because it was dirty with sand and grease and my hand blew up like a balloon.  It was Sunday Morning Gentleman's Club time.  This was our excuse to drink beer and throw darts on Sunday morning between 10 am and noon or 1.  You could not do that on the beach as open containers were not legal until noon Sunday.  I could not really play that day.  Dad, in a most uncharacteristic way, looked at me and said, "Here Mike, let me look at that under the light.'  I placed my hand in his, and he gently turned it and looked at it as a concerned parent, gingerly touching my infected hand.  Then suddenly, the full force of his grip engaged and he crushed my hand in his, pulling and ripping the skin back and forth.  I screamed in agony, swearing at him as I went to my knees and yelled, "What did you do that for?"  He let go of my hand and said, "Well, you thought you were feeling pain before, what about now?" I should have known, this was a typical Joe Jackson thing to do.  Those eyes bore hard into mine, and very sternly he told me, "Now get into the bathroom and wash that cut out like you should have last night!"

My friends, if you want the definition of a real loving parent, there he was.  There is no way I could ever have done that.  There were no medical facilities on the island.  It HAD to be cleaned as it was full of car grease and sand and bacteria.  My father never backed down from doing what hurt him when he needed to hurt us for our safety. He was beautiful.

Driving to Corpus was getting old. I think I may have only driven the truck one time to the refinery, so the rest of the time it was Dad's car that was eating me alive in gas and he was walking to work, because of my stupidity with the joint. When Little Jimmy, the first person I ever met in Port A got fired from the public works department of the City of Port Aransas, Dad told me to jump, and I did.  I was a shoo-in for the job that no one really wanted, cleaning the skid-o-kans on the beach.  My dad pointed out that when you have a job like that and you do it right, no one messes with you. 

It was amazing, my life became so different right away.  I was still having my butt handed to me in my innocent arrogance and honestly, things always seemed to go better if I could just shut my mouth and listen.  I was frustrated at times, but I was not above learning from my Dad and others too.

At the end of May, I went on a date that got set up with some friends that I worked with.  Talk about stepping on the proverbial banana peel, it happened to me.  One moment I was this single 19-year-old trying to figure out who I was and who I would become.  The next moment I was living with a 26-year-old who got married when she was 14 and had 3 kids, ages 10, 8, and 6.  She had just gotten out of a very abusive relationship that had lasted 12 years.  We were definitely not what the other needed but it happened and it was a firestorm that was so out of control in a coming of age in a tornado sort of way that by the end of the year, she moved back to the travel trailer that she was living in previously.  The both of us had the good sense to realize that she needed to be an individual and so did I, and within a month, called it quits altogether.  We still loved each other like people love each other when they endure a disaster together.  We remained friends but she changed me forever like no one else ever could.  The complexities of that relationship set things into motion in me that defined who I became in the years to come.  By the time I was 22, and living many miles from here, people would look at me after I told them how old I was and they would shake their heads and just say, "Lots of miles."

Working for the city, I grew up. My Dad did great things with and for me and I made friends along the way.  Because Dad and I were best friends, our friends were usually mutual, and I was ok with that.

Somewhere along the way, with all of the fine-tuning I did in the wake of lessons hard learned and dealing with consequences, I became a different person.  At the core, there still was some me, but I shook it all down and found a much more refined person.  When my life seemed to be repetitive within the confines of my little island, I wanted to move to Maine, to start a new adventure.  I wanted to write books and songs, something I did in much of my spare time now.  I started to realize that I could have whatever life I wanted.

I left Port Aransas in October of 1986 and never did make it to Maine.  I did get stuck in Connecticut for almost 2 years before finally making a life in New Hampshire in 1988.  My previous relationship made me a daredevil when it came to relationships and my life felt like an endless barfight. I was extreme in all the choices I made and I was so impulsive in making them. 

I believe that March 4th changed my course.  Had I stayed where I was going, I would have had a pretty predictable, pathetic meh life, but I did not.  That moment on Park Road 53 changed all that.  Eventually, after more self-destruction in Connecticut and New Hampshire, I once again found myself in Port Aransas in 1989.  I had the pedal to the floor, racing into self-destruction and not caring what anyone thought.

But then, there was Joe Jackson. What is a good dad? My answer would be so appalling to the average person. My Dad loved so clearly, in a Grand Torino sort of way. In the figurative sense, his life was given so I could actually live mine. He really did not know that he was doing this. He did not even remember what he did.  That thing that saved my life he did, made him feel ashamed when I told him. But he chose the nuclear option for my life to finally begin.  I became a different person on September 9th, 1989, when that full can of Budweiser came flying from the kitchen and into the side of my head exploding all over me.  Yes, it took more than a day of absolute rage inside of me to subside, but when it did, I knew more than I ever have and more than I ever could without this brutal wake-up that I was going to die soon if I did not change.

March 4th, 1985 was a turning point in which my life turned from what would most likely have been a benign, job, home, vacation, blah, blah, blah.  It took a hard right turn into a life in which I never knew where I was going to be later that day for many years.  That is the stuff that made me.  Like it or not, this is how I arrived, waking up on the floor and not remembering how I got here.

1985 Chapter 3: The Rise and fall of the Tule Lake Lift Bridge

 February came, and with it, the visit of my sister and Grandmother. I had not seen either of them since last June. It seemed like much longer than that. During the months I lived in Port Aransas, I got to know Dad more than ever. One thing seemed clear: my being there grounded him and made him more content, less restless, and wild. Those traits rose to the surface now and then but were rare.  What was about to happen took this to a level that I could not imagine up to this point.

Brooke and Grandma were arriving at Corpus Christi Airport after dark. There were two ways to get to Corpus, out Park Road 53, down to South Padre Island, through Flour Bluff, and into the city. The other way was across the ferry to Harbor Island, Aransas Pass on the Intercoastal Waterway, Ingleside, Portland, and then into Corpus. Most going the latter way would go over the Bay Bridge, which reached high in the sky over Corpus Christi Bay. But Dad had other plans.  An old bridge was built on Navigation Boulevard in 1959. It was a lift bridge.  When large ships would approach, old 1950s sirens that sounded like something you would hear in a power plant if there was a radiation leak would cut through the air. Barricades would come down as the siren screamed.  Then, with the utility eloquence of 1950s engineering, thousands of tons of concrete and steel would lift straight into the air to allow passage to the passing ship. The whole time, the siren screamed its message of doom and warning. 

I loved how Dad romanticized this bridge. Engineering marvels like this are rarely built these days. It was something to experience for sure, and because of the ship traffic, this bridge was well exercised. As we sat there in the dark and waited for the bridge to come down and allow us to continue on, what we did not know was that in 278 months, explosive charges would be set on April 11, 2008. In a sad and spectacular moment, the bridge would fall into the water, never again sounding its warning and never again causing people like us to sit for a few minutes and let their lives catch up to them. All I can say is I was glad my Dad was not here to see that.

As we drove along Navigation Boulevard, we drove across Leopard, which Navigation was offset.  The darkness and light fog made visibility a little weird. For that reason, the Dodge jumped across Leopard Ave, which was crowned. The air shocks made it feel like the car launched into the air, and instead of staying on Navigation, we landed in the dirt lot of a dumpy-looking bar. As I stood hard on the brakes and skidded to a stop,  Dad was shocked and amused, "Whoa, Mike!  You need me to drive?" 

It surprised me, too. I decided I was still the best one to drive. Although Dad did not have alcohol per se, he was holding a bottle of Nyquil between his legs, and he would take a swig of it every now and then to nurse a bit of a cold he had. It was also the first time he had seen his mother in 4 and a half years. What is the connection? This was the only time I had ever seen him do this.

We arrived at the airport. Corpus Christi has such a nice, quiet airport. As the welcoming glass doors slid open to walk in, I could not help but notice the words etched into the glass: "Sparkling City by the Sea." One of several affectionate nicknames for the city, all you had to do was drive by the harbor at night to see why.

As the line of passengers filed through the gate, my Grandmother and Brooke approached. My Grandmother was 76 years old now. She had lost a good deal of weight and seemed so small. A person of 76 in 1985 was much older than someone of that age today. Having lived through two world wars, the depression, and brutal factory conditions during a time in which safety and health were secondary, it took its toll on a person.  I could see the relief in her eyes when she saw us, especially Dad. It had been so long for her. 

Brooke was 15 and clearly had my Grandmother in good care for the trip. I was very happy to see them both. Dad quickly whisked us away to the baggage claim area. Grandma talked about the trip, how Dad had filled out and looked good, and how long my hair was. 

For the trip back to the island, it only seemed appropriate to go over the Harbor Bridge, which reached high into the sky over Corpus Christi Bay, to get a view of the sparkling city. As we drove home and talked, I was a little sad. I would still have to work the week they were here because I was still new at the refinery. 

I drove Dad's Chrysler to and from work that week so that he had the Dart, which was less of an "Island Car." at least I struggled to keep it from being one, even though I was losing ground. During the days, Dad took Brooke and Grandma around the island to show them its personality and to introduce them to friends. My Grandmother truly loved being with Dad, and seeing his life here in Texas was the best gift in her eyes. She and Brooke met everyone they could, and Jeri and Odette came over one night from Flour Bluff.

We gave Grandma a room down the hall as she liked to go to bed early. One night, I sat on her bed, and we talked about my trip to Texas and other things. It reminded me of being younger when we would stay at her house for the weekend, every other weekend. Those Friday nights, we would talk until about 11:30, and we could no longer keep our eyes open. I recall sitting at the old Formica and steel table in the small kitchen on Carol Drive, laughing hard with her because we were tired and would get silly.

In Port A, we had 2 grocery stores. The main one was the Family Center IGA and the other was Super S Foods.  Super S was owned by a guy named Victor. He started including a 2-cent coupon on the weekly Super S flyer. The first week, this week, that was for a 2-cent can of Tuna. In 1985, everyone in Port Aransas got their mail at the post office. Brooke and Dad went to the post office and cleaned the trashcans out of Super S flyers. I will never forget seeing my sister sitting on the couch with a stack of those flyers, scissors in her hand, clipping those tuna fish coupons. I saw something that day. It was like I saw where she belonged. I could see her future.  That future was not in Connecticut but here on the Island. It was such a shock to my system because I never saw or thought of it before.

Dad was sitting at the kitchen table with Brooke and me that Friday night. He asked Brooke to come back to Port Aransas to live with us. She had no trouble deciding. She was going to come back, and we were going to be a family. If I had thought my being in Port Aransas grounded my father, I would not have seen anything yet. He was also on his way to having a 15-year-old daughter, which was completely different from having your adult son move in.

For me, something major shifted. I love my sisters and always have. We absolutely had the typical sibling annoyances with each other over the years.  Mostly, it was because I was trying to parent them. On this visit, it was the first time I ever saw my sister as the person she is. Until now, she was the kid in her ultra white hightop sneakers who wanted to hang out at the Plaza with her friends.  Today, she was in Port Aransas and just fell into its rhythm like she was born to live here, even more than me, and maybe even more than Dad. There was no denying it!

Grandma thoroughly enjoyed her visit, but you could see that it was wearing her down energy-wise. Something was up. Dad even told me, "My Mother has always had a bit of weight on her. She looked healthy. She seems so weak and frail. I was not expecting that." This would be the last time I would get to see them interact in the same place. 

She was one of the most amazing people I had ever known. In 1985, I still took her for granted. My 19-year-old self was still too weak and inexperienced to understand that in this woman, there was greatness. She lost her husband one day in 1958 and raised two kids, bought a house, worked in a sweatshop, and cared for her elderly mother on pennies. She did it in a world where women were accepted as second-class citizens. She kept her focus and did that with such grace. Yes, any man could achieve whatever in this life. We praised and edified them in society in the 1950s through the 1980s, but she did it all. She was not seen as an equal to men of the day, yet in her heart, she knew who she was, and the opinions of others did not count because her desire to live an honest life was foremost.  She was always respectful and capable and just wanted her family to have a good life. She did not ask for anything else in this life. 

She knew her son very well. She knew his struggles with his emotions. He lost his Dad at 13, and he could not get by it. She knew the wild streak in him well. She probably knew about every run-in with the law he had in Connecticut, as years later, I would find clippings from the Bristol Press Police Blotter. She loved him anyway. She understood the calming effect that having his family in his life had on him. This trip was a success. Brooke had been living at my Grandfather's house in Connecticut, and now, in about a month, she would be moving in with us here in Port Aransas. She knew this was where Brooke belonged because of her ability to see things for what they were.

The week went by quickly, and the day that we had to put them back on the plane came quickly. I did not know it that day, but this would be the last time I ever saw my Grandmother in person. We talked on the phone about once a month. Any time I talked about going somewhere else, she always gently said that after I did whatever, I should return to the Island and my Father. She knew. She always knew.

I was not expecting Brooke's departure, even though it was just a month, to leave me with such pain in my heart. I really missed my sister! I had never experienced this before. As each day passed high on those vessels in the refinery overlooking all the bulk oil storage tanks on Corpus Christi Bay, I counted the days. 

I was there. Several miles from me sat the Tule Lake Lift Bridge, performing its important work many times a day, imprinted in my mind as timeless and eternal as the life I was living in February 1985. It never occurred to me that things, even as permanent and magnificent as this bridge, would someday just not be here anymore and that life, a different life, would go on.

Born to fight and then surrender

 I am knocking on the glass. I am making eye contact. You see me and I see you. But like a wise poetic old friend of mine has pointed out, "It's coming from the feel that it ain't exactly real, or it's real, but it ain't exactly there." Lately, this has been a problem for me.

I was 11 and an old man told me he could never sleep past 5 in the morning.  He accepted this and just moved on. You could count on him when the sun rose each day. Whether it was his paper, his coffee, or a donut, he was there. He told me that he would get up every morning and open the newspaper to the obituaries page. If his name was not there, he knew it was ok to go get coffee. That was so long ago. I miss him.

Back then, we all owned our respective ages. What I did not know was this was only a delusion of time on me. I should have known better. There was a blowback effect one afternoon on that high deck on Oleander St in Port Aransas. He gazed off towards Alister St where we could hear the sounds of a little league game intensely being played at the ball field. Friends and parents alike watch their player living in a moment that I am pretty sure will last forever, and yet disappear in a flash.

"You know", my Grandfather said quietly, "when I hear that sound, it takes me right back to when I was a boy, playing baseball with my brothers. We were a whole team ourselves. The funny thing is, I SWEAR that was just last summer!" He sighed. I shivered inside because a shock wave went through me. "Oh no, does it REALLY go that fast?" It was a few seconds in time that I knew that the words shared across the generations had made it to the other side without the trademark breakdown.

That moment was one of the deepest moments I have ever shared with him and it is one of those that I live to see unfold as the pages of the calendar turn like the opening credits of It's a Wonderful Life.

You go through life and pretty much feel like you did when you were 15.  It is in the contradictions of the physical world that we start seeing the shock to the system. There are some things we can do and other things that we cannot do. As a student of twelve-step programs, I know this and should use it to apply force in the right places. But when you have fought the current all your life, it is hard to just accept anything. 

I think it will always be there, that born-to-fight attitude. I know no other way. I am sure it has kept me alive for the last 18 years, so it cannot be all bad. I often wonder how so much time has passed by so quickly, and then I remember. My Grandfather was not only trying to tell me about it so that I could somehow slow my ride down, but he was also trying to understand how it all went by so fast himself. It is surreal when conversations I had 40 years ago start making sense today. The understanding feels a little like surrender.

Popcorn?

 It is not fair, to never know who you are until it's too late. Yes, it is ironic. Living like no one else so that later you can live like no one else definitely has its benefits. I also wonder if it makes me hold back. 

Photo by Pylz Works on Unsplash

I am sick of riding the runaway train I have been on for decades. I have bragged about my lack of planning, gliding on my extreme spontaneity, and my reckless behavior when it comes to planning or lack thereof, but it does take its toll.

I have to wonder though, does the pursuit of order and peace sabotage the greatest thing I could ever do? Are peace and order worth not taking chances? 

There indeed are desperados under the eaves my friend. Identifying all of them is nearly impossible. I know the answer lies between the risk and the momentum, to do nothing is foolish. So I will take the steps in which I know that the vacuum can pull me into the whirlwind. There is no other way. It's time.

So there I was, geared up ready for the charge. It was going to happen. I sent intelligence reports back confirming that my mission was a go. Then, nothing happened. Why?  Obviously, this is more than just popcorn, it is a tsunami and I think I know that. 

The mission was scrubbed because of three things: a supply oversight, a lack of adherence to the schedule, and a barrier of perception. That last one was enough to not carry on but in my retreat, I wonder if those points did not exist, would I have stepped off the sidewalk. I really don't know the answer to that.

That second desparado under the eave is the most dangerous.  I have not given up, I am just regrouping. The dealer knows that the rest of the players think they know what I am holding for cards, but they have no idea. Someone asked me, "What would you do if you were not afraid?" The answer is coming, I am laying down my cards, face up. They will know the answer.