Still Chasing Windmills

I love Broadway musicals. There, I said it.

I haven't always been this forthright about my love for the musical theatre. As an awkward, impressionable 4th grader, I would have been more likely to admit that I enjoyed my teacher, Mrs. Caldwell’s, sloppy cheek kisses, bestowed upon her tardy students, than to admit that I had watched “The Music Man” or “Oklahoma” over the weekend. But watch them I did. This charade lasted for years. That is, until my 3rd semester of college.

In the fall of 1995, I was fresh off of a 2 year church mission and had just returned to school. I was back in the dating scene and was settling comfortably into my coursework. I was oozing with self confidence and devoid of insecurities. The time was right for a long-awaited inner wakening.

It was easy for me to say yes to an invitation by a friend to see the college production of “The Man of La Mancha”. I was ready for any new adventure and experience which came my way. I had never seen a live stage musical, but what the heck? I was game for anything.

From the opening rise of the curtain to the final standing ovation, I was smitten. I loved it all. The witty dialogue, the ornate decorations, the costumes, the free-flowing storyline.

And then there was the music. It began with the title sequence, “I, Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha”, and continued with the soothing, serenade “Dolcinea”. There was the faithful admiration of Quixote’s squire, Sancho, shyly crooning “I Like Him”. Then, on to the gallantry surrounding the main character’s knighting by the innkeeper, with “The Knight of the Woeful Countenance”.

And finally, there was the blissful rumination found in “The Impossible Dream”. I was spell bound. After several years of inflicting irreparable damage to my eardrums, thanks to the likes of M.C. Hammer and Spinal Tap, I had once again found my way. I had rediscovered my love of musical theatre.

Since that time, I have watched dozens of musicals, both on stage and on the big screen. At one point Jaylynn’s and my favorite movie was Doris Day’s “Pillow Talk”. We have kept ourselves awake on all-night car trips singing harmony parts of “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Les Miserables”. We have spent long weekends in San Francisco watching very expensive, but expertly done, stage productions of “Phantom” and “Wicked”. 

Finally, just this past weekend, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, the kids and I cozied up on the couch as we watched the 1972 Arthur Miller production of “The Man of La Mancha”. I was taken back to that cold, October evening just over 15 years ago when I was first introduced to the gallant and chivalrous knight, Don Quixote of La Mancha, and his faithful squire, Sancho. To the reformed and renewed Dolcinea, and the manipulative and ill-intentioned future-nephew, Sanson Carrasco.  

My two girls, Abbie and Emma, unabashedly loved the show. And even though he continued to play games on the iPod the whole time, I can’t imagine it was simply a coincidence that my 5th grade son, Tyler, sat nearly motionless by my side for 2 hours while the movie was playing.  So who knows? Perhaps in 25 years, Tyler will be sharing his own story of when he dreamed the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear the unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go.....

Its a Christmas Miracle!!!

There are very few movies that I will watch more than once. Especially on an annual basis. This was not always the case. As a teenager, several friends and I would get together on Saturday night to watch movies. This was always followed by Saturday Night Live, which was in its prime at that time, in my humble opinion. We would occasionally find our way down to the local Blockbuster Video and pick up a new release, but more often than not we would come back to one of our standby favorites. At the top of that list were Better Off Dead, The Princess Bride and Monty Python and the Hold Grail. I’ve seen each of these movies dozens of times. To this day, I can still quote each of them by heart, nearly word-for-word. They are cult classics for me in every sense of the term.

There is also one seasonal movie that I can watch each year during this season and never tire of seeing it. That movie involves a certain pink bunny suit, a carbine action, 200-shot range model air rifle, and of course the soft glow of electric sex sitting in the window. That’s right, I look forward greatly to my annual viewing of The Christmas Story.

As the story goes, Ralphie wants nothing more than to receive a new Red Rider BB gun for Christmas. He asks his parents for one; he writes a school essay about one; he asks the mall Santa for one. Each time his answer is the same - “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid”.

Imagine his surprise on Christmas morning when, after seemingly opening all of the presents under the tree, his parents brandish one remaining present which was hidden out of sight. Could it be? Could this be the answer to a young boy’s often uttered pleadings and prayers? He tears into the wrapping paper and finds that it is indeed his very own Red Rider, complete with “a compass in the stock, and this thing that tells time”. It was truly a Christmas Miracle.

Several years ago, while Jaylynn and I were living in Nebraska during graduate school, her parents were facing their first year of not having all of their children home for the holidays. This was very hard on them, especially on my mother-in-law, Irene.

Omaha is about a 10 hour drive from their hometown of Gillette, Wyoming. It is a difficult drive under the best of circumstances, not taking into account the possibility of in-climate weather while driving on I-90 across the Badlands of South Dakota in December. Add to that the fact that both of us were working to help pay for schooling expenses. There was no feasible way that we would be able to make it over to see them this year. Or at least that is what we told them.

However, in reality, Jaylynn wanted to see her family for the holidays just as badly as they wanted to see her, err, I mean us. It would have taken blizzard conditions to keep us away from Gillette that cold Christmas season. The difficulty arose when we found out one of us, I can’t remember who, was working until late afternoon on Christmas eve.

On finding that the weather just might cooperate with our covert operation, we packed up the car and readied ourselves to hit the highway at the earliest opportunity. That opportunity came at quitting time, 5:00 pm, on Christmas eve. So onto the highway we went, driving hundreds of miles through the night, across three states to our destination in Gillette, Wyoming. We alerted one person of our travel plans, Jaylynn’s sister Emily, who agreed to leave her front door unlocked for us to enter when we arrived.

At about 6:00 in the morning, we pulled into the neighborhood and parked our easily-recognizable car a half block away from her house and stealthily crept in through the front door, hoping to not awake any of the other people in the house. We hid ourselves in the spare room in the basement, hoping to catch a few minutes of sleep before the designated time when the entire family would arrive for the Christmas morning festivities.

Seemingly within minutes, people started to arrive at Emily’s home. We remained hidden until the last of the family members arrived. As they remained scattered throughout the kitchen and dining area preparing breakfast, we emerged from our hiding place, shouting, “Surprise! Merry Christmas!”

Irene stood there, motionless for several moments, speechless and unable to register what she was witnessing. Tears immediately welled up in her eyes as she then let out a joyful scream and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Its a Christmas miracle!!!”  

This phrase has stuck with our family over the subsequent 12 or so years. Whenever anything pleasantly unexpected occurs, regardless of the time of year, Its a Christmas miracle! When our sub-saharan climate hometown received 12 inches of snow on December 27th, 2003 (close enough for us), Its a Christmas miracle! When I showed up yesterday with donuts for breakfast, Its a Christmas miracle!

So Merry Christmas to all and here’s to many more Christmas miracles for years to come.

Go Daddy Go!!!

Don't let my rough, hardened exterior fool you. Deep down, I am a bit of a sentimental sap.

I always get teary-eyed while watching inspirational sports movies, regardless of how poorly written, directed or acted they may be. Hoosiers, Pride (the story of an all-black swim team in inner-city Philadelphia), Remember the Titans, The Blind Side, We are Marshall, Sea Biscuit (Horses are athletes, too!!!), The Karate Kid, parts I, II, and III.  And you don't have a heart if you can honestly say that you didn't get at least a little choked up when Sly Stallone punches out the Don King-Impersonator/promoter, “Duke”, in Rocky V.

And, of course, what list of tear-jerking, inspirational sports movies would be complete without a mention of “Ru-dy! Ru-dy! Ru-dy!” It gives me chills just thinking about it.

I still have an awful taste in my mouth from an experience that I had just over 2 years ago. No, November of 2008 does not mark the date of my last trip to Hometown Buffet.

It marks the first time that I traveled 26.2 miles by foot in one day. On purpose. When I had a perfectly good car just a few feet away at the start. And I paid lots of money to do so. It was my first marathon.

It was a miserable experience. The temperature was hot and the trail was crowded. I was overweight and undertrained.  And to top it all off, one of my anti-chafing nipple band-aids fell off half way through the race.

The one positive experience that I gained from my first marathon was being able to run the last 200 yards  with my then-8 year old son. Seeing him and my two little girls cheering me on at the finish helped alleviate a small portion of the searing pain that I was feeling in my quads, my calves and my precious ego.

They didn't know or care that I had just finished nearly 45 minutes slower than my projected time. They didn't know or care that I had walked a good portion of the last 6 miles due to muscle cramps in my legs. They didn't know or care that I had just had a Justin Timberlake song stuck in my head for the last 3 consecutive hours. All they knew was that their dad had just done something that very few people are ever able to accomplish. I had finished a twenty-freaking-six mile race and they were pretty darn proud. I must admit, it brought a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat.  

The kids’ celebration was complete and their joy was full when we informed them that ,after waiting 2 hours for their dad to finish, they could now finally help themselves to the limitless supply of peanut butter Powerbars and purple Gatorade that awaited us at the finishers table.

Tyler Goss - Future Economist

Tyler, my (now) 10 year old son, has always had a little different outlook on life. His favorite channel on the radio is NPR, and his favorite program on NPR is Radio Lab, a weekly talk show dedicated to exploring various aspects of science, philosophy, religion and human nature. He loves to read, and has been known to read the entire Harry Potter series, all 4,167 pages, in one month over his summer vacation. When given the choice to eat a bowl of Lucky Charms or Frosted Flakes for breakfast, he will choose Shredded Mini Wheats. Every single time.  

All of this is totally and completely normal.....for a 47 year old English professor from New Hampshire. Not a 9 year old, blond-haired, blue-eyed kid from California. However, with all of that in mind, to go along with his very adult tastes in breakfast cereal, Tyler also has a very adult wit and sense of humor. Not only does he “get” most adult jokes, but he also frequently surprises us with spontaneous, funny and witty quips, many of which I doubt even the English Professor from New Hampshire would appreciate.

So you can imagine my lack of surprise when one of our good friends, Tara, told us of an experience that she had at her son's recent birthday party. The boys were just settling in on the floor of the family room to watch the new Percy Jackson movie. Tara, being ever aware of her lovely new carpet, made each boy pinky swear that they would NOT spill even a drop of Sprite on her carpet. As soon as they agreed to surrender their life should they spill, she would then open their re-sealable soda container and move on to the next 9 year old boy.

When she approached Tyler to solicit the standard oath and promise, he politely declined her offer. Puzzled, she asked him why he didn't want her to open his soda. He responded by saying, “I've done a risk analysis of the situation, and don't think that it would be in my best interest to have mine open right now”.

Thank you for your concise analysis, professor.  Next week's lesson - Tyler outlines, in detail, the value of opting for the higher maximum air speed velocity of the Nimbus 2000 over the superior handling and braking abilities of the Firebolt.

Enter the blogosphere

Due mainly to the fact that I haven't written in my journal for more than 9 years and under heavy pressure from my wife who is looking for productive ways for me to channel some of my creative energies, I've decided to start a blog. What this blog is going to contain is still a mystery to me. But being inspired by my 8th grade English teacher, Mrs. McLelland, I'm going to give it a shot. You see, Mrs. McLelland threatened to hunt me down and maim me if I didn't somehow find a way to write professionally as an adult. And while I am not nearly ambitious or talented enough to attempt to write professionally, I suppose that I will have to settle for being a recreational writer. I’ve always enjoyed writing. The idea formation, articulation and presentation has always been very therapeutic to me. And reading the finished product is often very satisfying.

So my plan is to, first, archive some old pieces that I've written over the past several years, and then to include other entries as I spend time working on them. I foresee this being anything from personal musings on life in general, to sharing funny and memorable family life anecdotes, as well as reports from various outings and sporting events. I am also occasionally asked to speak at church or teach a lesson. I enjoy preparing for these presentations. However, I also consider myself a fairly poor spontaneous public speaker. As a result I typically write down each talk or lesson, word-for-word, as part of my preparation.

So Mrs. McLelland, if you happen to do like most other curious Americans, that is, google your own name and stumble upon this blog, please know that the author didn’t purposely dangle those participles or incorrectly conjugate those verbs. Any errors are my own and should not be taken as a reflection of your outstanding teaching methods from the 1986 school year at Grange Junior High. Go Grizzlies! Grrrrr.