The following story is fictional. Any resemblance to any individual is unintended.
-I have lived in this mobile home for most of my life. I wasn't an awkward child, the one made fun of by other kids. I was the kid nobody cared about because the reputation of my neighborhood involves transients, unemployables, and losers. That neighborhood was filled with good, hardworking people, the minority filled the reputation.
I was smart enough, getting good grades in my elementary years when it wasn't so important to wear certain clothes, have certain electronics, and have a certain style of hair. I even excelled at certain sports, and played with some of the rich kids when they didn't care where I lived. My trophy case is not empty. I have some spoils of early success.
About the time I hit junior high, something changed. I take the hit for living on my talent and not working hard enough. Sports success started to dwindle, and it changed how some people perceived me. Suddenly, I was the wrong kid in the wrong place. What was outside was more important than what was inside. I didn't have the right clothes and the right gadgets. People I had been buddies with in elementary school made me feel like a lower form of life. Suddenly, the fellowship I had earned was gone. I was back to being the kid nobody cared about.
In high school, because my parents were hard working, and taught me to work hard, I took a job and saved some money. I bought my own video game system, helped with my own phone. I found the online world accepted me because they could only see what I do on the screen. They didn't see how handsome I was or was not. I was a blip on a screen, a voice on Skype. I applied myself and threw just enough of myself into schooling to get through. I started staying up all the time.
Eventually, I left the school of my youth, and applied myself to gaming. I was exceptional. I started to eat at all hours and without discretion. I rarely left my room in my mobile home. I didn't have to leave it to feel like I was successful and good at something. Even seeing those old friends was just a reminder of what I could have done with their support. They decided I wasn't worth it. The online world had more acceptance of me. I could be comfortable with me.
Eventually, I kept working my job, but gaming was my life. I had the talent to design and work in video games, but not enough support. Seems the trailer park was on the wrong side of the tracks, and I did enough education to get through, not excel. Colleges want your credit rating to be just so, too. I couldn't enter their world because I wouldn't leave the trailer park. I wasn't comfortable dealing with people, even though I was good at it.
I kept eating like a teenager in my early 20's and wouldn't leave my room often. My weight ballooned, but I wouldn't change. My family's medical history was poor: Cardiac disease killed all four of my grandparents, my great grandparents died of cancer, and my parents fought heart, weight and diabetic issues. I ignored their pleas, and kept eating. I needed the recognition of the gaming world, and the job gave me just enough money to stay on the wrong side of the tracks. I bought a mobile home in the same neighborhood they knew me.
My room was my world. I made enough to keep a roof over my head and eat lousy food. I eventually switched to all McDonalds, Wendy's, Dairy Queen. I didn't have the strength to cook my own food, even though, at 450 pounds, I had the size to do more. A friend moved in, and they started removing the waste from my room and home. I lost my job because my size was such I couldn't leave my room. I could not leave the acceptance of my online world. Disability gave me enough to keep it going. I could not leave my room.
Finally, it happened. On a cold and snowy February night, I felt the pain in my chest. I had stayed in my room so long, I couldn't get out. The door was not wide enough. 911 took my call, but I couldn't let the firemen in my home. They had to cut the end off my home to get me out. I couldn't fit in an ambulance, so a neighbor with a flatbed truck offered to drive me with the firemen to the emergency room. It was 10 degrees out, snowing lightly. It was my only hope.
On arrival, they rolled me off the end of the flatbed, and tried to place me in a bariatric wheelchair. It snapped under my weight. They rolled a bariatric bed out to truck and wheeled me into the E.R. that way. Two normal sized people could not touch hands above my girth. By the time they could diagnose my heart attack, six hours had passed. My heart could not be restarted.
I passed away at age 27. Official cause of death is Myocardial Infarction. It was actually suicide. I committed it one bite at a time. What would my life have been in an ideal world where the only thing that counts is what is inside?
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Father's Day 2015
In the United States, it is Father's Day. It is a day where fatherhood is actually held in high esteem. People wax poetic about their father and what he did for them. They buy presents, and make long trips for visits, even spend the day talking to them.
Father's Day is just another day to me. I made a decision a long time ago to be a Father. It was based on what I saw in culture.
America has waged a war on men and fatherhood. Men have been characterized by Hollywood and general media as foolish, with one track minds. They are driven by sex or money, if you believe the scripts, and can be fooled changing minor details. Flip a skirt or easy money in front of them, and they will swallow the entire hook.
My father was a little too real to be cut from that cloth. Maybe war does that to you. He served in a medical unit in France during World War II. He never talked about the war, even when we would have listened. Those demons may have haunted him the rest of his life. I learned in the medical field that cleaning up after a battle is a unique nightmare.
My father did enough school to graduate from high school, but possessed the intelligence of a college graduate. He could ask enough questions to confound the supposedly educated man. I once heard him turn a highly educated engineer into a quivering mass of jelly over some building plans. What the college graduate cooked up would have failed in reality and my dad knew it. By the time he got done, the engineer knew it, too.
Considering how much he revered the educational accomplishments of his own children, it seemed a paradox. His ten children combined to earn 12 post secondary degrees: three associates, three masters and six bachelors. The next generation, his grandchildren, earned nine bachelors, two masters, and one D.O., now practicing psychiatry, with two still in high school. Not bad for a guy who slugged it out every day as a sheet metal contractor.
Was he perfect? Hardly. He drank too much. His stubbornness was the stuff of legends. The hard head, old time diet, and pressures of life lead to an early grave. He left us 28 years ago, at age 62. After all, he and his bride of 41 years raised ten children, buried two within hours of birth, and there was a miscarriage in there somewhere. They ran their own business, where he put on the same five sets of faded work clothes, and crawled around on roofs, installed duct work, and even fought with architects and engineers about designs.
He gave me his intelligence, his sense of direction, his stubbornness, and the love for a game. I found out years after he died that he played on a State Championship basketball team. Fort Wayne Central Catholic won the Catholic State High School Championship when championship rings went into airplanes and battleships. Some pictures of him with bats in hand, a basketball team, a group called "The Rangers". Maybe he dreamed of the same things I did, and it didn't make a living in those days, let alone set up generations to come.
I might have been smarter than he was, but I could not be as real as he was. He just didn't take anything from anyone. Knowing what I was like, especially as a teenager, I'm amazed to still be alive.
Father's Day is just another day to me. I made a decision a long time ago to be a Father. It was based on what I saw in culture.
America has waged a war on men and fatherhood. Men have been characterized by Hollywood and general media as foolish, with one track minds. They are driven by sex or money, if you believe the scripts, and can be fooled changing minor details. Flip a skirt or easy money in front of them, and they will swallow the entire hook.
My father was a little too real to be cut from that cloth. Maybe war does that to you. He served in a medical unit in France during World War II. He never talked about the war, even when we would have listened. Those demons may have haunted him the rest of his life. I learned in the medical field that cleaning up after a battle is a unique nightmare.
My father did enough school to graduate from high school, but possessed the intelligence of a college graduate. He could ask enough questions to confound the supposedly educated man. I once heard him turn a highly educated engineer into a quivering mass of jelly over some building plans. What the college graduate cooked up would have failed in reality and my dad knew it. By the time he got done, the engineer knew it, too.
Considering how much he revered the educational accomplishments of his own children, it seemed a paradox. His ten children combined to earn 12 post secondary degrees: three associates, three masters and six bachelors. The next generation, his grandchildren, earned nine bachelors, two masters, and one D.O., now practicing psychiatry, with two still in high school. Not bad for a guy who slugged it out every day as a sheet metal contractor.
Was he perfect? Hardly. He drank too much. His stubbornness was the stuff of legends. The hard head, old time diet, and pressures of life lead to an early grave. He left us 28 years ago, at age 62. After all, he and his bride of 41 years raised ten children, buried two within hours of birth, and there was a miscarriage in there somewhere. They ran their own business, where he put on the same five sets of faded work clothes, and crawled around on roofs, installed duct work, and even fought with architects and engineers about designs.
He gave me his intelligence, his sense of direction, his stubbornness, and the love for a game. I found out years after he died that he played on a State Championship basketball team. Fort Wayne Central Catholic won the Catholic State High School Championship when championship rings went into airplanes and battleships. Some pictures of him with bats in hand, a basketball team, a group called "The Rangers". Maybe he dreamed of the same things I did, and it didn't make a living in those days, let alone set up generations to come.
I might have been smarter than he was, but I could not be as real as he was. He just didn't take anything from anyone. Knowing what I was like, especially as a teenager, I'm amazed to still be alive.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Sorry For Disappearing
Just realized I hadn't posted anything since Memorial Day Weekend. Time flies when you're just enjoying life and not worried about lineups.
First and foremost, I have been on vacation. We spent a week in Corolla, NC, splitting time between the ocean, the pool at our rental home, and the various attractions that make the Outer Banks a restful, affordable and, above all, a family place to vacation. If the ocean had been warmer, especially early in the week, it would have been absolutely perfect.
A vacation like this would have been impossible coaching, but as an umpire, I am in control of my schedule. My teenagers even enjoyed their time with mom and dad. Back home a week, it has returned to normal: the pug is the only one happy to see mom and dad come home from work. For a week, it was pretty darn good.
-I have been umpiring some travel baseball, and have a couple of observations.
First, the fundamentals are still a mixed bag in the 12U and 13 U Levels, but the kids playing 14U seem to be pretty sound. The lesson here is simple: coaches, don't slack on your player's when it comes to fundamentals. Even if they are not talented, they will play at higher levels if they do things right. I saw a couple of kids with little comparative ability, who could still play competetively because their fundamentals were solid. They might become the best players in a couple of years: their bodies could mature into a real ballplayer, instead of a great athlete with lousy fundamentals who need to learn them while competing. That situation doesn't end well.
Second, the number of breaking pitches thrown by 12U and 13U players is WAY too many. A twelve year old's curve ball is hard to adjust to the the 60 foot distance, making it a competetive liability until they gain control. Is a win now worth the wear and tear that could end a promising player's career early? I saw a 13U game where one pitcher threw almost 33% curve balls. Yes, he threw them for strikes, but would they be strikes from another 6 feet away? NO. What's he gonna have left at 16? Memories.
-I am a Chicago Blackhawks fan, going back to the days of Tony O. A third Stanley Cup after a lifetime of nothing is almost too much to believe. A win tomorrow night would secure Lord Stanley for another year in Chicago.
Considering the Blackhawks have been responding to the Lightning's lead, it is even more incredible. Tampa Bay has had control of every game, at least at some point. Last night, the second period looked like a power play for Tampa almost the entire period. Just one goal allowed was a tribute to incredible will. If it hadn't been for a miscommunication in the first period, that game would have gone to overtime. Lord knows what would have happened then.
Should the Blackhawks win the Cup, it will be by experience. Tampa's day will come.
-I look for IndyCar to put on a good show in Toronto today. Street courses, notorious for tight racing, could be a great exhibition today. The course in Toronto has a nice mix of speed sections, tight turns, and offers several passing zones. It might come down to the driver who still has "push to pass" available at race end. Weather not withstanding, it should be a show.
So...am I off base?
First and foremost, I have been on vacation. We spent a week in Corolla, NC, splitting time between the ocean, the pool at our rental home, and the various attractions that make the Outer Banks a restful, affordable and, above all, a family place to vacation. If the ocean had been warmer, especially early in the week, it would have been absolutely perfect.
A vacation like this would have been impossible coaching, but as an umpire, I am in control of my schedule. My teenagers even enjoyed their time with mom and dad. Back home a week, it has returned to normal: the pug is the only one happy to see mom and dad come home from work. For a week, it was pretty darn good.
-I have been umpiring some travel baseball, and have a couple of observations.
First, the fundamentals are still a mixed bag in the 12U and 13 U Levels, but the kids playing 14U seem to be pretty sound. The lesson here is simple: coaches, don't slack on your player's when it comes to fundamentals. Even if they are not talented, they will play at higher levels if they do things right. I saw a couple of kids with little comparative ability, who could still play competetively because their fundamentals were solid. They might become the best players in a couple of years: their bodies could mature into a real ballplayer, instead of a great athlete with lousy fundamentals who need to learn them while competing. That situation doesn't end well.
Second, the number of breaking pitches thrown by 12U and 13U players is WAY too many. A twelve year old's curve ball is hard to adjust to the the 60 foot distance, making it a competetive liability until they gain control. Is a win now worth the wear and tear that could end a promising player's career early? I saw a 13U game where one pitcher threw almost 33% curve balls. Yes, he threw them for strikes, but would they be strikes from another 6 feet away? NO. What's he gonna have left at 16? Memories.
-I am a Chicago Blackhawks fan, going back to the days of Tony O. A third Stanley Cup after a lifetime of nothing is almost too much to believe. A win tomorrow night would secure Lord Stanley for another year in Chicago.
Considering the Blackhawks have been responding to the Lightning's lead, it is even more incredible. Tampa Bay has had control of every game, at least at some point. Last night, the second period looked like a power play for Tampa almost the entire period. Just one goal allowed was a tribute to incredible will. If it hadn't been for a miscommunication in the first period, that game would have gone to overtime. Lord knows what would have happened then.
Should the Blackhawks win the Cup, it will be by experience. Tampa's day will come.
-I look for IndyCar to put on a good show in Toronto today. Street courses, notorious for tight racing, could be a great exhibition today. The course in Toronto has a nice mix of speed sections, tight turns, and offers several passing zones. It might come down to the driver who still has "push to pass" available at race end. Weather not withstanding, it should be a show.
So...am I off base?
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