Love Story

This weekend is my wedding anniversary. 18 years with the lovely Amy. Which is pretty cool.

 

But if I was an honest man- and I like to think I am- it'd be safe to admit that not all 18 years have been blissful bliss, and as a husband, though I haven't failed miserably, like anything in life I have room for improvement.

 

Our marriage is not the kind you read about in a fairy tale or see glorified in a Hollywood romance movie either. It's had its ups and downs, just like any human relationship. We ain't perfect, though Amy's a lot more perfect than me. But thinking back to May 29, 1993, I find it hard to believe we've been together so long. It seems like I just blinked my eyes and here we are. Where did the time go?

 

And, gosh, I was such a dweeb on our wedding day. I couldn't even say "I do", correctly. When asked if I'd take Amy as my wedded wife, though I knew I was supposed to say "I do", I momentarily forgot, panicked and blurted out a bewildered. "Yeah." Fortunately it was enough to make us legal, because a few minutes later, standing under a mild blue sky, dotted with a few cotton ball clouds on a Saturday midday at the Nevada County Fairgrounds, Pastor Sam Floyd pronounced us husband and wife.

 

A lot has happened in the 18 years since that beautiful spring afternoon. Though I swear I don't feel any different, it'd be hard to deny that we both are; in some ways anyways. We're not the wide eyed young couple off to see the world together; instead much of our time and energy is now spent just making our way through the world. Living does that to people. You grow, take a few steps back, evolve, take a few steps forward, regress, etc, etc…

And with no cookie-cutter roadmap stamped out for us when we started, like everybody else, we've just had to find our way. But every year when it comes to thinking about our marriage, our anniversary and our time together, I don't think about all the changes, problems or crises, small and large, that Amy and I have faced over the years.

 

For a few minutes, I like thinking back to the first time I ever laid eyes on her.

I'd just started attending Abundant Life Community Church. Actually I was dragged kicking and screaming, nagged by my often overbearing but well-intentioned Mother. I only did it to get her off my back. But before making a quick get away after the first and (I hoped) only ill-at-ease Sunday, I was coerced by Pastor Sam into attending a singles night the following Friday at his house. Truth be told, I only went because Sam told me Jacque (a girl I'd liked and pursued for quite a while) might be there too. I didn’t go to meet Amy or renew ties with God; I went chasing a skirt.

It was kind of an uncomfortable evening, though, because I barely knew Pastor Sam, and didn’t know any of the other people at all. And the only person I did know and wanted to spend time with- Jacque- wouldn't sit still or stay close long enough to even dabble in some superficial small talk. Sigh. I hated then, and still don't like today, being placed in a group with a bunch of strangers. Church singles strangers, work strangers, strangers in general. It makes my blood pressure soar and I came very close to slipping out that night when nobody was looking. But as the event wore on and Jacque did her best to ignore me, I did happen to notice a different girl sitting on a piano bench in the corner.

 

She didn’t talk much and I'm fairly certain she didn't notice me; I mean, come on- what’s to notice? However, when I glanced at her across the room that night, I knew I was looking at the sweetest girl there. Quiet and shy, like me, Amy Galpin had a real nice smile and pretty eyes. As I checked her out, hopefully without her knowing I was checking her out, I took exceptional notice of her eyes; they were innocent and doe-like. Amy’s brown eyes reflected a soft-hearted, gentle spirit that immediately captivated me.

 

But as the evening dragged on, nothing of substance ever happened with Jacque, and Amy and I didn't say two words to each other. So that first singles night was hardly the stuff of magic. I eventually stopped chasing Jacque when she started chasing after a Grass Valley cop. No way could I compete with a man in a uniform. Still, it took another couple of years-- yes, years—before I'd screw up the courage to even ask Amy out. And after a disastrous first date, there was reasonable doubt about there’d ever be another one.

But I got a second chance and it wasn't long after that, the relationship took. And less than a year later we arrived at our wedding day. So that pretty much brings us up to date; life continues to hurtle along, I'm now a lot older and the world remains cold and harsh. But not nearly as my world B.A (Before Amy). She’s been my anchor, my number one fan, my comfort and my joy. I couldn’t have been any more blessed.

So we observe our anniversary on Sunday, I'll catch a glimpse of Amy and for a few minutes find myself once more basking in the glow of young love and the new life we began together that Saturday in May, now so long ago now. But I won't be seeing my barely 40, though still youthful wife; instead I’ll be looking again at the sweet, serene 19 year-old girl with tender brown eyes who I first saw sitting quietly across the room at a church singles get-together, on that cold November night in 1989. 

Though the love came later, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Happy Anniversary, Babe.

This Is The End...Not

Hmmm….so the Rapture or second coming or end of the world as we know it, as prophesied by mere mortal and Family Radio's head honcho Harold Camping, didn't happen.

Just as I suspected.

Not that I don't expect Jesus to return someday or that Judgment Day is a real event. I do. I just never believed it would happen this past Saturday simply because some old geezer with a microphone twisted the Bible to fit his own agenda and said so. By the way, Harold, in Biblical terms it's never a good thing to be thought of as a false profit or practicing Heretic.

But two days after the world clearly didn’t end the man is still too stubborn to back down. Not only was a retraction not issued, or at least a mea-culpa uttered under his breath, we didn't even get a sincere "Just kidding." Nope. All we got was another end date.

Instead of May 21, the new and improved Judgment Day is slated to occur five months from now, on Friday, October 21. You see, the first date was just a slight miscalculation. Stuff happens. But this one Harold has -again- guaranteed. So mark your calendars. It'll be here before ‘ya know it. And hey, think of all the money we'll save not having to buy Halloween candy this year. Woot-woot! Goodness, doesn't this man get it?

But just like this past weekend the same thing is going to happen come October. Life will go on and Christians all over the country will once more be subject to ridicule, lumped in with this old fool and his loony followers. Late night TV hosts and atheists everywhere will again have a field day mocking and ripping our beliefs. Once again, it’ll be open season on the faithful. And once more the Lord's name gets universally dragged through the mud. Thank you very much, Harold Camping.

Now, I don't suppose or pretend to know when Jesus will come back. All I know for sure is someday he IS coming back. But I won’t be hearing about it first on Family Radio- or any other outlet. However as a deep thinker, which for my purposes is someone who loses sleep worrying about problems that don’t actually exists, Camping's end of the world prediction had me brooding all night.

I call myself a practicing Christian and believe, to the core of my being, that I’m saved because Jesus died on the cross for my sins. But as my brain kept turning this "prophesy" over in my head, I wondered if I've lived right enough, my faith strong enough to preserve my salvation. I wondered if His grace was enough. What if October 21 comes- or whenever Judgment Day really is-and Jesus comes, but I don't have enough of the right spiritual stuff for to be taken back to Heaven with Him?

What if I get left behind?

I imagined waking up October 21 in the same bed shared with the lovely Amy, but finding she’s not there. Not in the shower. Not in the kitchen. Not in the living room. No place. Next I checked the garage and noticed her car there but she wasn’t. Anyplace. The cats were still there, and I watched traffic move down our street like any other morning but, somehow, between going to bed and waking up, the world had drastically changed.

All I got when I called the in-laws was the answering machine. So I called the brother-in-law. But again, at 7:30 on a workday morning, nobody picked up the phone. It just rang and rang until going to voice mail. Next I called Pastor Sam. But nobody answered at his house either. Weird. Quickly I got dressed and decided to drive to work. Somebody HAS to be there. After all, I'm blessed to be working at a 24/7 Christian radio ministry, on the air coast-to-coast and streamed worldwide. As I get out to Highway 49, I’m transitorily reassured to hear K-love on the radio and commuting with other drivers during the hour between home and office.

But occasionally channel surfing I keep hearing breaking news accounts of millions of people suddenly missing. The Rev. Billy Graham. Actors Kirk Cameron and Chuck Norris. Pro athletes Andy Pettitte and Kurt Warner. Sngers Michael W. Smith and Rebecca St James. All gone. Along with countless other souls who’ve suddenly and mysteriously turned up missing. Other bulletins were coming in, too, with terrifying reports of catastrophic earthquakes rattling all parts of the globe, and swarms of F-5 tornadoes, flash floods and other natural disasters occurring in this country as well. Listening to the alarmed announcers detailing one disaster after another, one would think the world had ended.

At work, my key card allowed me into the office and, as usual, the first thing I heard was the sound of our station playing over the internal intercom. It seemed like any other workday morning. Except I'd walked into an empty building. The on-air studio, the news and production rooms- they were all vacant. In the lobby, all the phone lines were lit up with incoming calls, but nobody was at the front desk to answer them. It was eerie.

Alarmed, I went quickly back to my desk and called my supervisor but, like everyone else I’d tried to reach that morning, could only raise his voice mail. Frantically, I placed calls to several other colleagues, but again, only got their voice mail. As the sound of our station kept playing in automation, I wandered the halls looking for another living soul. Anybody. But the only creatures drawing breath on our expansive campus were the lizards in the well-tended ground cover outside. Everybody at K-love is a Christian. I am too. But I guess my co-workers all led better lives than me because my search for a friend came up empty. In an office occupied by nearly 300 people on any given work day, I found myself completely alone.

I knew the music on the radio would play on its own for another week or ten days, depending on how far in advance it'd been programmed. But there'd be no d.j.'s or news breaks; just the control room computer segueing seamlessly from song to song to spot break and back to song, all on its own, and with no human intervention. The daily logs would run out at some point, though, the computer would stop and all 200 stations across the K-love Radio Network would go silent. Forever.

Just like the office. No talking, laughing or friends and co-workers moving about. Nobody getting coffee in the break room. Nobody having meetings. I was alone. I wanted to call Amy, to hear a friendly voice and tell her what was going on. But then I quickly remembered. She wouldn’t be answering her cell. So I wandered in shock back to the workspace I share with three other people. Like everyone else, they were missing in action, too. I looked around the room then stared out the window. Taking a deep sad breath, I picked up a few personal items off my desk (for reasons I can't quite figure out) and left the building, likely for the last time.

Driving home again, everything looked as it did when making the same drive the evening before. There was plenty of traffic, stores were open; people were coming and going. But the world had become a foreign place. Everybody I knew and loved and cared about had been taken from me and I was the only one left behind in a land of non-believers, wondering how I screwed up my eternal salvation and wondering how to go on living. Or even wanted to go on living. I knew doing myself in would surely condemn me to eternal damnation, but what the hell. What else would there be to look forward to?

Fortunately, I didn't have to devise a way to take myself out because my eyes blinked open. During all my ‘deep thinking’ I must've drifted off for a few seconds. Or the rest of the night. As always Amy was still by my side. It was dark outside, but the world was apparently no different than it'd been before I’d gone to sleep. I closed my eyes again before getting up and thanked God it’d only been a dream. And that my Eternity is secured only in the pages of the Bible and only by His mercy and grace.

Not the false teachings of a whack-job loud mouth 90-year old preacher-man who, when soon standing before Him, is probably gonna have a lot of 'splainin to do.

Just Another Day at the Office

July 16, 2007. It was supposed to be just another routinely run of the mill Monday; just like any other day in the middle of an otherwise routinely hot Northern California summer. But it wasn't. It wasn't like that at all.

Here at my place of employment, EMF Broadcasting, Mike Pendeault worked in Desktop Support. Residing just a couple cubes down from mine, Mike was the guy IT usually dispatched whenever there was a PC problem.

 

On moving days, Mike was also the "Bekins Man"; anybody being shuffled from cube to cube, cube to office, or office to cube (all which seem to occur around here about as often as Lindsay Lohan gets arrested for something) always knew it was time to go whenever Mike showed up. He made it happen, unhooking all your electronic gear from one work station and re-connecting it at the next one. 

 

I’ve gone through this semi-frequent rite five times now, since moving into our new complex several years ago, so I saw Mike often.  Always around, always with a funny story or really bad joke, Mike (or "Big Mike" due to his tall and imposing stature) was a staff favorite. I liked him. I think everybody liked him.

 

Right up till that routine Monday when he dropped dead....here at work, as many of us helplessly looked on.

Everything seemed absolutely normal.  But just before noon time, with great difficulty, Mike began coughing. Loudly. It sounded like he had something caught in his throat, like he’d swallowed wrong. At first I didn’t pay a lot of attention, because in the ambient background of the work environment, people are coughing, hacking or clearing their throats all the time. At almost the exact same time, I got called down to my supervisor’s office for a brief pow-wow on a spot I was working on. So it didn't quite register that something might be terribly wrong. 

 

But five minutes later when I came back, whatever was happening to Mike had intensified and grown worse. He wasn’t coughing anymore, instead he was making loud, bellowing gasping sounds and concern had spread throughout our work area. Somebody called 9-1-1, while Jason Hollis did what he could to assist, or at least keep Mike calm. I was only a few feet away but might as well have been in another state, I felt so utterly useless.

 

However in the confined space where Mike lay struggling for his life, the last thing the situation called for was a crowd. So I stayed where I was as Big Mike's gasps for air became more and more in vain. Mercifully, the paramedics were on sight in less than 5 minutes and began feverishly trying to stabilize him and figure out what the problem was.

 

They cut off his shirt and hooked him to several monitors, including an EKG. Everybody stood back and watched them pump him full of drugs, but Mike continued to gasp, crying out in mournful pathetic pleas- “God help me please. I can’t breathe. I can’t BREATHE!!”
He said it over and over. It was scary, and becoming increasingly apparent that Mike's condition was grave and deteriorating.

I have no idea what his vital signs registered, but clearly they weren't very good. One of the EMT’s kept saying things like, “Hang on Mike....Stay with me.....Don’t leave us, Mike.....C’mon, stay with us”. I don’t think they ever got him completely stable. But when Mike stopped writhing I guess he was stable enough to transfer to the hospital. That’s when the three EMT’s lifted Mike’s 6'5“frame onto the gurney and quickly wheeled him out of the building to a waiting ambulance.  By then though, he wasn’t responding—in fact, he wasn’t moving at all.

It was 12:55 p.m. when Mike died on the way to the hospital.

From the time he’d started going into convulsions till the end, less than 45 minutes had passed. Later, after it’d sunk in that Mike was gone, it snuck up on me that the ones who’d been in that room as the paramedics continued to frantically work on Mike, had been witness to a man truly in the throes of death. I was one of them, and it became surreal to recall exchanging "Good mornings" and following Mike through the employee’s entrance and into the building that morning at around a quarter to nine. 

 

He had no idea he had just over four hours to live. Nobody did.

 

Then I thought back to the conversation he and I had at the front desk, about an hour and fifteen minutes before he’d be pronounced dead, where, as usual, Mike was trying to solve somebody's computer issues.

 "Hey, the printer in back isn't printing. Can you take a look?" 

 ”Yeah, when this bad boy straightens up and flies right again (nodding to the PC in front of him), I'll come take a look”

I remember the words sounded like Mike, but his voice was kind of tired and he looked a little tense and distracted. But I didn’t make the connection that anything might be wrong.

Then I kept thinking about Mike's last words. I couldn’t get them out of my head. ”God help me please….I can’t breathe...I can’t BREATHE!!” It was only a few minutes later, while sitting at his desk, and before getting back to that printer, that the trouble began. And an hour later, he was gone. He was 42 years old.

 

Yet Mike’s work space, like his outward appearance, remained eerily, but familiarly, disheveled. His cup of coffee, nearly full, had gone cold. There was a half eaten banana on the counter top, along with several manila folders. Their contents were strewn about, half in and half out. A couple boxes of printer paper were stacked in a corner. His backpack, wallet and keys were tossed on a shelf over his laptop and PC, both continuing to run in sleep mode, the screen savers both gone black. The red light on Mike's phone indicated an unanswered voice message waiting to be heard. And out in the parking lot, his car was still exactly where he'd left it earlier that morning.

 

Everything appeared just as it would on any other work day. So mundanely routine, it was as if Mike had just stepped out for a minute or gone to the restroom, or another part of the building to work on a colleagues PC problem. It looked like he’d be right back. Except he wouldn’t. Ever.

 

There were tears and an uncomfortable silence throughout the office the rest of the afternoon. You wanted to work, you wanted business as usual, you wanted to hear people laughing and talking and moving about, and for the environment to feel “normal” again. But nobody could concentrate on working and nothing was normal about the rest of that day.

The event was too difficult, if not impossible, to understand. Mike was only 42. There didn't seem to be a way to wrap your arms around it. It was all so...so final. The coroner said he died of two pulmonary embolisms, one in each lung. There was nothing anyone could have done and by the time help arrived, it was too late. The doc's called it "just one of those things". But that was small consolation to those of us who saw what "just one of those things" actually looks like.

Yet Mike had got out of bed that day, took a shower, brushed his teeth, put gas in his car and drove to work to start another Monday. It was a Monday like a thousand other routine garden variety Mondays, but Mike hadn't the foggiest idea that this particular Monday would be his last day on earth, and no clue that by lunchtime he’d go out into Eternity and taken to Heaven.

 

Somebody described it in Gulf War "Shock and Awe" terminology. Shock, that a seemingly healthy human being we worked and laughed with, and who'd walked among us that very day, had been taken so quickly. But there was also a reverent awe knowing that Mike, as a committed believer, had been instantly taken into the presence of his Lord and Savior.

Stuff like that just doesn't happen every day. Not at work anyway. At least, it’s not supposed to. It was supposed to be a random run of the mill back-to-work Monday, just like any other day. But it wasn't and there was nothing random or run-of-the-mill about it at all. For Mike, that Monday was an end and a beginning- the end of his earthly life and the beginning of life everlasting. At last, there was nothing left for him to fear, or fix. Mike’s work here was done. God had called him home.

And for me and the rest of us in attendance that Monday, as Mike's life abruptly, then gently slipped away, it was an up close and personal reminder that tomorrow- and sometimes even today- is promised to no one.

 

The Day The Mountain Blew

On Sunday May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens erupted destroying thousands of acres of property across an entire region, and killing 57 people. That was 31 years ago today. But it’s what happened in the aftermath, the volumes of volcanic ash left behind in the wake of the violent explosion that I remember the most. However, living in Spokane at the time, about 200 miles from the mountain, I wasn't even aware of the 8:31 a.m. eruption till later that afternoon.

It was a beautiful spring morning, the type of day I couldn't wait for during the long, cold Northwest winters. It was a day to be out among the living, too nice to stay inside and watch TV or listen to the radio- that was for sure. My focus that picture perfect morning was on getting outside and playing, so I had no clue what had happened or what was on the way.
 

Dennis Bossingham came over around 9:30. We made some calls to organize a baseball game at Manito Park with some of the guys from Whitworth. Noon was when we planned to meet, and with time to kill before heading to the South Hill, Dennis and I finished off a round of mini-golf at the course next to Lilac Lanes and fed some quarters to the Pac-Man and Space Invaders machines inside the adjacent arcade. After that we made a quick pit stop over at Zip's Drive-In on Francis for some lunch.
 

As we left the arcade however, we both noticed the bright sunny day had begun to cloud up. Moving west to east, a huge black cloud appeared to be devouring the once pristine sky. In the warm spring air, it uncharacteristically looked like a big storm was brewing. We didn’t usually see those until summertime, but thunderstorms in May weren’t completely unheard of, either. Besides it still looked a long ways off and even if it held together wouldn’t dampen anyone’s spirits for too long. They usually blew by quickly and playing ball during a cloudburst was kind of fun. Nothing like sliding into second base on a muddy infield. You might not stop.
 

However as we reached the car, somebody pulled into the space next to us and when he got out asked excitedly, "Hey did you hear? Mt St Helens blew!"  Actually, not at all. The old saying, its news to us, well, it really was. That wasn't a storm moving in; it was the leading edge of the eruption’s ash cloud and though there was still sunlight underneath the apocalyptic-looking cloud-mass, the day was growing quickly and eerily darker. The temperature had fallen, too. Perhaps as much as 15 degrees from the previous hour and suddenly it wasn’t such a nice day to be outside.
 

So much for our baseball game, too. With everyone abuzz about the eruption and glued to its coverage, none of the guys wanted to play ball anymore.  It was a quarter to 1. Dennis and I left Zip’s and headed back to my house. Turning up Division, the roiling stone grey cloudbank kept gobbling up sky and turning the daylight even darker. Oddly, it seemed like it was following us, too- we couldn’t get away from it. Back at my place we turned on the TV. It was 1:00 in the afternoon and all three Spokane stations- Channels 2, 4, and 6- were offering live wall-to-wall updates on the eruption. Dennis stayed for awhile, but then decided to go home himself.
 

I continued to watch the tube with an eye out the front window. Within the hour, I couldn't believe what I was seeing: at 2:00 in the afternoon the sky had become pitch black. Like the dead of night. Stepping onto the porch, the birds that’d been singing and chirping all morning had gone to sleep and the street lights had come on. It was as dark and quiet as midnight. Then it started snowing. Only it wasn’t snow- it was ash.
 

From playing mini-golf at 11 a.m., in perfect golden spring sunshine, to standing in my front yard at 2 p.m. under a gentle falling of ash and what seemed like 2 in the morning; it was the strangest weather day I think I'd ever seen. The sky eventually lightened up, but only a little. At 6 p.m. under a murky overcast, from an 80 degree high at noon the temperature had dropped 21 degrees, down to 59, and the sky continued a slow rain of Mt. St. Helens dust. 
 

In the dim gray twilight, the sun, blotted out by smoke and ash, had begun to sink. It was a curious looking evening and on impulse, decided I wanted to venture out into the gathering gloom. Heading down West Columbia, the volcanic grime had covered everything, including the road, coated in a thick layer of chalky powder, which contributed to a slippery ride. It was like driving on a thin coating of snow. I had to drive much slower than the speed limit because as the car moved it disturbed the fallen soot, causing it to belch up a haze of veiled dust that reduced the visibility.

At the major intersections, though the signals worked, cops were out directing traffic. With vehicles moving ever so cautiously, they stopped each one (though there weren’t many) and politely asked drivers who didn’t need to be out- like me- to not be. In other words, get off the roads. At the Rowan & Maple crossing, that’s what the officer tersely requested of me when it was obvious I was just out looking around. ”Now, please!” Message understood, ten minutes later I was off the dusty and dark streets, and safe at home.
 

As Sunday night turned to Monday, city, state and even federal officials still didn’t know what to do, and seemed to be grabbing at straws for solutions. At midday, Mayor Bair ordered surgeons masks be distributed to every person within the city limits, and asked all residents to wear them outdoors to keep from breathing in the dust. (I wonder how much that cost the City of Spokane- we all got 2 of 'em).

Next, the mayor encouraged all home owners to hose the ash off of the lawns, sidewalks and driveways on and around their property. We were to wash it into the gutters, where the City - in theory- would dispatch its entire fleet of street sweepers at regular intervals and suck it all up. It was a nice idea but completely unworkable. They couldn’t keep up with it. Besides, you really couldn't sweep or spray the stuff down; there was too much of it to sweep and applying water just turned it into a gooey paste. So the streets remained mostly un-scrubbed. And what didn’t soak in, stick or get washed off, just stayed where it was; drying into a fine, flaky, dust. A shoe-top fog kicked up whenever you walked in it. It made me think of “Pig-Pen”, in Charlie Brown comic strips.

One thing the City of Spokane did get right was keep all non-essential traffic off the streets. It minimized the clouds of wispy gray soot that every passing vehicle kept kicking up. Not only were these moving billows of ash a safety hazard, as the cinders scattered into the air, the odds increased of breathing them back into your lungs. But when the stay-at-home order came out, though prudent, living in Spokane after the eruption was almost like living under Marshall Law. Except for walks to the grocery store, or another futile attempt at yard and sidewalk ash clean-up, for the next five days I was pretty much indoors and home bound.
 

The mess wasn’t confined locally, either; President Carter declared all of Washington state, Idaho and most of Western Montana disaster areas. But with nearly the entire population of Spokane pretty much confined to their homes, schools and businesses were closed for the entire week, too, including the hockey store I worked at part time. And though my other part time job was in the media, my position at KCKO was deemed non-essential. The station was not a news source and my position as board operator/producer could be covered by staffers who lived closer to KCKO’s South Hill studios. On the complete opposite side of town, over a half hour drive time away, I was told to stay home, with no place to go and no way to earn an income. Working hourly, if you’re not there, you don’t get paid.

Worse, though, was my car. I didn't have a garage, just an open carport. So my VW Rabbit was basically left outside to fend for itself in the aftermath of the eruption; which meant it was doomed. Volumes of soot and ash settled into the guts of the car, grinding and eating away at its internal workings and gears and rendering the vehicle nearly inoperable. The powdery pumice basically killed it. When finally allowed to get out and drive, I took my little Rabbit-- coughing and sputtering all the way- to a nearby mechanic, who pronounced it gone beyond repair. So I left it there, on its death bed waiting to be put out of its misery, and walked home. I assumed they disposed of the body because I never saw it again.
 

Before looking for a replacement vehicle, I called the insurance company. They gave me the good news that the now totaled Rabbit wasn’t insured. Oh, I had comp and collision coverage- but not volcano coverage. Insurance--what a scam. You pay into it, but when you really need some help, they devise a way not to pay out. However, Allstate “graciously” (their words, not mine) gave me a $250 stipend to cover the rent-a-wreck I paid to borrow. The balance on any new vehicle would have to come from whatever was left over and out of my own pocket.

Mt. St. Helens sucked.

 

It was, however, probably the last major news event that wasn’t instantly covered nationally and globally by cable or satellite TV news. CNN was still a couple weeks from signing on for the first time, so they weren't even in the picture yet (so to speak). Nor was Fox News, CNBC or any of the other now pervasive 24-hour cable news sources. The images and reports the nation and the world saw of Mt. St. Helens on the day of its eruption were all picked up from the local affiliates in Spokane, Portland and Seattle, tracking the eastward drift of the explosion fallout which ended up coating the ground and everything above it all the way into Montana.

In the days that followed, the dust cloud circled the earth, could be seen from space, and adversely affected the climate in the Pacific Northwest for the next several months. It made 1980 the coldest summer I’d ever lived through. It was similar to summer in San Francisco, minus the whiffs of sourdough and the sea breeze. From May 18, the day of the eruption, though late August, Spokane experienced an almost uninterrupted string of cloudy, clammy 55-60 degree days during the time of year when the normal temperature would be 20 to 30 degrees above that. Even when it was clear, it really wasn’t; the blue sky muted by a filmy haze of still migrating ash.

And well into the fall, still under layers and layers of ashen gray soot, the landscape remained something akin to a moonscape. Mile after mile, the familiar green and amber terrain of Eastern Washington was there somewhere but altered; disguised and buried under the remnants of Mt. St. Helens' turbulent innards. The proud mountain itself lost about a thousand feet off its top, the grand summit replaced by a crusty, misshapen crater. At its base, beautiful and pristine Spirit Lake was transformed into an ugly, uninhabitable quagmire, full of avalanche debris and volcanic waste.

And the fallout cost me one perfectly good Volkswagen Rabbit.

Me and Mom

There’s June Cleaver, Claire Huxstable, Mother Teresa. And then there's my Mom.

 

About the only thing all four ladies had in common were high levels of estrogen.

 

Mom and I didn't see eye to eye on many subjects and that's putting it lightly. If I was having fun, I shouldn't be. If I wasn't having fun, then that's just how it should be. We fought constantly: over my hair, my clothes, my grades, my choice of friends, and my life in general. The disapproval came in many forms, mostly verbal, starting very young and carrying on well into adulthood. And even though it’s all history now, I still remember the sting of some of the things she used to say.

 

Sometimes, even now, those words are right there in front of me again like an unwanted imaginary billboard. And if I allow it, I’m still 10 years old and feeling totally inadequate. My care wasn’t inadequate: I was looked after, fed, watered, had a bed to sleep in. But in all the years I lived under my own mother’s’ roof, though I knew it wasn’t so- couldn’t be so- I never felt truly and unconditionally, no-strings attached, loved.

 

It felt that way because, through my eyes, Mom’s love so often came out in such peculiar and unloving ways over the same small and- in the big picture- nit-picky issues. Again- hair, clothes, friends, not living up to her expectations- it was like a long playing broken record that she never removed from the turntable. Same ol, same ‘ol. I didn’t specifically measure up well with my big brother Steve. I never measured up in general. And it hurt that I didn’t.

It broke my spirit and often, broke my heart. Sometimes I didn’t know where to go to feel okay, just as I was, except around my friends. Or in my room, with my books and baseball cards.  But this broken relationship with my own Mom, all the heaviness that came with it sometimes made me feel a little jealous of all the kids I knew who had intact, and even great relationships, with their Mom's; the kids with Mom's that really seemed to not just love, but like their kids, too.

 

Oh sure, I did typical little boy things that would land me in hot water with anyone’s Mom. But when she was angry at me for stuff that seemed unfounded and unfair, I used to think, "Why can't my Mom be more like Kirt's mom, or Gary's, or Paul's?" Or at least be a little less rigid. Lighten up a little Be More understanding. More patient? Or maybe, why couldn’t she just leave me alone?

I'm not sure that was in my mother’s maternal DNA though. However to her credit, I think Mom was born to be a Mom. She took the role seriously and seriously cared about the raising of all us kids, though my interpretation of "caring" and hers were most likely worlds apart. Besides, the way Mom learned to mother probably wasn’t anything she could control. She went on her instincts, or perhaps was just doing as her Mother had raised her. I don’t know. My perceived shortcomings and faults seemed to set her off though and she often took them out on me. Of course, none of her babies came with an instruction manual, either. I wish we had because, though. Maybe it would’ve been easier for her. Or easier on me.

Or at least, going though it with her, wouldn’t have sucked so much.

But I refuse to go around and 'blame my life' on Mom or my upbringing. Any mistakes I’ve made- and there have been plenty- I made ‘em on my own and with no help from the sidelines. Being Mom's kid didn’t cause me to go out and 'do something stupid'. All my errors and transgressions are nobody's fault but my own, and I take full responsibility. So there.

Mom died in 2002.

She’d had a bad heart for a long time and it finally gave out (and I often wondered if raising me had been a contributing factor to her heart disease). But fortunately, by the time of her death, she and I had finally put up the white flag of surrender. The wars and little skirmishes we’d waged forever it seemed, were over. A working truce had finally taken root in our relationship and at long last we'd achieved peace in our time. We'd pretty much buried the hatchet, and not in each other.

Though a description of our relationship wouldn't be found in a Hallmark card, by the end I'd come to appreciate and love her for who she was. And I think maybe she'd come to love and appreciate the person I'd grown to be, too. I was finally “ok”; at least okay enough that in her final year, her perceived shortcomings in me were never brought up for discussion. I called it progress. She called it “mellowing with her age.”

Whichever, at the end, we'd become friends and because we had, Mother’s Day remains a hard weekend for me. Nobody sees it, I keep it locked up inside, but every Mothers Day since she's been gone--maybe in the shower, getting ready for the day, or at church-- there’s always a random small little moment where I find myself thinking about her and missing her. I guess it doesn’t seem to matter how old you get, or how positive or dysfunctional the relationship was, the boy never forgets his mom.

But it's on Mom's Day especially that I struggle not to beat myself up for growing up such a challenging child. I know I was a pain sometimes and often tried her patience. Mom was also diabetic. And when her blood sugar ran low, it likely contributed to, or set off, her mighty mood swings, rants and rag-on sessions. As a kid, though, I didn’t make that correlation. I just knew she was mad at me and I was bad. Yet as an older kid and young adult I wouldn’t cut her any slack for it.  By then, I think I pushed her buttons on purpose, just to "get even".

I never derived much satisfaction from it though, and it’s often been hard to forgive myself for letting the all-important maternal relationship sink to the depths of disharmony that it did. When Mom was alive, I tried to make up for it by always sending cards and flowers on birthdays and Mother’s Days and calling weekly as well. Did it make a difference? I don’t know. But in our not always very hand-in-hand relationship, I think it mattered to her which, I suppose if nothing else, meant she still mattered to me. And though I can't go back and try and get my childhood right, at the end of Mom's life, I think I finally did. Or came close.

On a whim one Saturday after a dump run, I called to see if she’d like to join Amy and me for lunch. She sounded delighted at the invitation, and an hour later she and Dad joined us at Bakers Square in Auburn. And for the next ninety minutes, over a sandwich and some fries, we caught each other up on the latest news and gossip. We didn't talk about anything special, just shared some pleasant conversation on a random Saturday afternoon. Nice meal, good chat. But as we were leaving, she pulled me aside and told me "It made my day that you called. Thank you. That was a really good time. Let's do it again soon."

It was the last time I saw her.

The next morning, as she and Dad were on their way to see her grandkids over in Reno, she suffered a final, massive coronary. Taken to a local hospital, she was placed on life support as the family gathered. From what we were told by the doctors, she wasn’t going to make it this time. So everyone went in and said their farewells. But not me. I chose to remember her the way she’d been 24 hours before, and how happy she said I’d made her feel. That's the last memory I wanted to have of her; the battles were over and put to rest and that I’d finally done something right and good for my Mom. I wanted to remember the good day we'd had in life on Saturday, not the deserted jar of clay being kept alive only by machines on Sunday.

Amy and I didn’t even stay the night in Reno. It was clear Mom’s time was very close, but I chickened out on staying to the end. Consumed with worry, fear, regrets, anxiety- the finality of it all- I wanted to go home and go to work the next day to keep my mind occupied on something else. So we went home. Sleeping in my own bed didn’t help because after a mostly sleepless night, the sun rose on a picture perfect summer-like Monday morning and nothing had changed. Mom was still dying and I was still being eaten up by the past.

It was September 30, 2002. 

Dad called about a quarter to ten with the expected news that the doctors had pulled the plug. Less than five minutes later, Mom took her last breath and peacefully left this world bound for eternity with Jesus. Oddly, the time of death was 9:30 on 9/30.

I went out to my car and cried for what seemed like an hour, thought it was really only about 15 minutes. Nobody noticed the red eyes, or if they did, didn’t ask. I didn’t even volunteer the information of a death in the family till I had to ask for the day off for her funeral. I guess everybody handles bad news differently; I did anyway. Looking back, though, the way I handled it seems really strange. Was I just trying to compartmentalize, or just copping out. Either way, working the rest of the week, and not talking about the family situation, seemed therapeutic. At least, it kept me busy.

As my mind wandered during the funeral, I wished I could go back and just one more time look her in the eye and tell her “I love you”- and really mean it. That would mean a lot to me. But I can't do that now. Yet someday I will see Mom in Heaven again and when that day comes, I sometimes wonder if I'll crumble in tears in front of her and beg forgiveness for being so difficult on her in life, or if she'll smile and hug me and  tell me all along how proud she was that I was her kid.

Putting the past in the past is still a work in progress. No, I didn't have a storybook upbringing. It was dysfunctional. However, in reality, it could’ve been a lot worse. Besides, in one way or another, I think everybody’s family is probably a little messed up. It’s the human condition. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody’s a perfect parent. None of us were perfect children. We’re all a product of our environment- dealing with the hand we’re dealt as life works itself out. Or, to borrow from an overused contemporary phrase, it just is what it is.

In life, Mom and I coexisted on an emotional battlefield, each of us taking shots, inflicting wounds, declaring small victories or retreating to fight another day. And though some scars remain, the battle, at last, is over. And at the end, I know she loved me. Mom didn't show it very well, but if nothing else, in her own way, she tried to. I don't miss the quarrels, put-downs, and bad feelings. But sometimes, I miss the friendship we settled into at the end. I miss just getting together to talk.

 

And as I pass this 9th Mothers Day without her, I think the following status update I saw in Facebook today makes a nice Mom's Day milestone marker. I think she'd like it too-

"If roses grow in heaven then pick a bunch for me. Place them in my Mother's arms and tell her they're from me. Tell her that I love and miss her and when she turns to smile, place a kiss on her cheek and hold her for awhile."

God bless you, Mom.

. 

Get A Whiff Of This

 

Today's topic is public restroom etiquette. If you're not into that, then please stop reading now. But it's on my mind because the problem described below, whether through bad luck or bad timing, seems to follow me like a bad penny. I keep running into it. And though I hate to be so obsessive-compulsively anal on the subject, I feel something needs to be said.

We stopped into Carl's Jr the other day after church to get some lunch. But after the ritual Sunday morning shaking of hands, I wanted to wash up before eating. Of course, I'm sure the grease from Carl's extensive menu of stuff-that's-very-bad-for-you would be a sufficient to kill or maim the millions of microscopic organisms living on my hands. Nevertheless, I like to be as germ-free as possible before eating.

So as the lovely Amy got in line to order, I headed to the bathroom. When I arrived, the door was locked. Okay, no problem; there's no rush. But 2 minutes, then 3 minutes….then 4 minutes later, the door remained locked while whoever was in there continued doing God-knows-what. Meantime another dude entered the premises who was in a hurry to use the men's room, too. Walking past me as if I was invisible, he also tried the door handle and, like me, found his admittance delayed. The man was instantly annoyed and muttered a couple of curse words. I'd have been more sympathetic, but instead became doubly annoyed because I'd been annoyed first and longer and the guy hadn't even noticed. Acknowledging my presence at last, the latecomer excused himself under his breath and went to stand in line.

But I'm still on the clock and almost five minutes into my vigil, the mystery man in the men's room had yet to reveal himself and emerge. For a brief moment I thought maybe he was sick and passed out or something. Nope. I heard a cough followed by some other extraneous noises which indicated he was still with us, but hadn't fully completed the task at hand. Whatever, it wasn't going to be pretty.

Frustrated, I joined Amy at a table she'd settled at with our food. "Whoever's in there has been in there forever, and knowing what I know I don't wanna go in when he comes out. Do we have any lotion in the car?" Amy directed me to the front seat where I generously lathered up my hands and fingers in a glob of anti-bacterial hand soap. I smelled sanitized and sickly sweet, but at last could proceed to eat lunch.

I forgot about the guy in the toilet until after eating. Waterlogged with coffee from church and a big gulp of Carl's Jr. ice tea, I needed to pee. It wouldn't wait till home, and though I considered the possibility of something bad waiting on the other side, tried Carl's bathroom door again. It’d been 15 minutes and must’ve been okay to enter by now. And good news- this time it was unlocked. So I pushed the door in....and was immediately enveloped in the most toxic of toxic fumes.

The place reeked as if it'd been ground zero for an atomic stink bomb. Good grief, I had no idea one human being could produce such a formidable stench. I assumed the odor had been left behind by the gentlemen who'd camped out there earlier. And now he was either someplace in the restaurant eating with the rest of us--its alivvvvee- or had already fled the scene of his crime. Regardless, at that moment that particular bathroom was the most disgusting place on Earth. It was gross. Peeing as fast as I could, my nostrils begged for fresh air. When finished and still holding my breath, upon my escape I nearly busted the door down.

But I wondered why anybody would go into a public restroom and foul it up like that. I mean, I understand the call of nature; sometimes you're out and caught with a problem, and have nowhere to go except the nearest public place with indoor facilities. But c'mon. That guy died in there. There's no excuse for that. Hey, just because you ate several servings of rotting road-kill and messed up your intestinal tract at breakfast, don't take it out on the rest of us at lunchtime That's bad form; really nasty. Stop it.

Bottom line: stay home and stink up your own bathroom.

Okay, 'nuff said. Thanks for your patience. I feel so much better now that we've cleared the air.

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

Approaching East Lime Kiln Road and Highway 49 on my way to work this morning, I had to stop my car completely as the narrow roadway momentarily became a livestock cross walk. There was a dog, a goat and a scattering of chickens. Yes, chickens. And they were all impeding traffic.

After the dog, goat and remaining poultry got out of the way, a one-legged rooster limped behind the menagerie. As two other cars stopped behind me, their drivers likely growing impatient, the disabled bird took a quick gander in my direction. Maybe he admired my view that way. Or perhaps making sure he had the right of way. Whichever the reason, for a split second, the full-of-himself-fowl seemed to take on human characteristics. He strolled with an over-confident air, almost like he was daring me to step on the gas and run over him- go ahead punk; make my day- before calmly proceeding across the pavement.

He took his time, though, favoring his game leg. I have no idea what was wrong with it but the injury hadn’t kept the cocky capon from strutting his stuff.  After swaggering to the other side of Lime Kiln, he was quickly surrounded by the chicks. The dog was peeing on a tree and the goat was eating grass. But the hens swarmed the conceited rooster like he was a winged rock star (an Eagle? A Byrd? A Black Crowe? Or maybe just a Sheryl Crow?) Whichever, the five females scurried along in his wake, pecking and squawking at each other and fighting for his attention. However, the smug rooster paid no attention and, at least outwardly, ignored the ruckus.

Oh, but he was happy.

It'd be a stretch to assume I know anything about reading birdy body language, but clearly that rooster was in his element and clearly lovin' the attention. As traffic moved again, the flock of feathered friends moved as a clique and off into the brush, to do whatever it is that chickens do for fun. But the answer to the age old question became obvious: why did the chicken cross the road?  For love, baby. Just show me the honeys. Yep, the boy did it all for love.

Awww. Don’t you love a story with a happy ending?