family

You Cannot Feel a Pumice Stone via SnapChat

Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

After 57 years,  I have collected a lot of random stuff,  Over the years it has been easier not to go through the storage bins  in the garage.  My wife and I make Spring Cleaning “dates” when the settled dust is thick on lids.

It is probably easier to catalog my collection:

Childhood

  • program from my elementary school musical singing days
  • picture  – collared shirt, bowl haircut
  • blue “participation” ribbons (california!)
  • clay rabbit I made at  4 years old
  • a letter from my Grampa (“man”) to me before he died in 1966

High School

  • transcript copies:   two years in Cape Cod, MA ;  two years in Tucson, AZ
  • picture of me in a Revolutionary War uniform  (We got to carry and shoot black powder muskets!)
  • A few polished stones and pumice (rock collection)
  • Stamp collection of USA and foreign stamps
  • pocket knives

Navy (first time)

  • bootcamp yearbook
  • pictures of friends from the technical school at Great Lakes and Pensacola

1980s

  • college pictures with two groups of friends
  • sample of toilet paper, sugar, and wrapping paper from a college Soviet Union trip
  • ticket stub  from the Los Angeles PINK FLOYD concert (the Wall)
  • A scuba mask from scuba diving days

Navy (second time)

  • pictures in my cracker jacks re-enlisting at the new Navy Memorial (Plankowner)
  • certificates, several framed of ceremonies (Shellback, Golden Shellback, Panama Canal)
  • trinkets, cigarette lighters, jewelry and perfume bottles from Egypt, Japan, Greece, France and every point in between

Married life and family (2001 -)

  • youngest son’s baseball items from Little League All-Star selection
  • more random, but expensive,  trinkets – “ART”
  • travel mementos , mugs, coins, crafts

Changing your own oil

Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

Spending quality minutes with your children older than eighteen is an exercise in creativity.   Take this morning for example.   Getting up before they woke and started to scatter, allowed me to get the honey-do’s done.  Well, it is probably more accurate to say that I needed clean underwear and clean sheets since my sweetheart gone almost all week, was due back from her writing conference later this morning.  At least I wouldn’t have that added to my list of to-dos when the Missus got home.  (And might earn some points for me.)
Matt and I had talked last week about changing the oil in the Honda, and this morning he approached with a window of opportunity for some bonding time.  Of all the discussion and the lessons on the costs and benefits of clean oil, I’m sure the one take-away from this morning was how cool the hand-cleaner was in removing the dirty oil from our hands.   There might have been another lesson on getting the oil filter off too.  And until some other dad or garage mechanic shows him the oil wrench one uses to remove stubbornly-tight filters, my hammer and screwdriver lever action will be a sharp trick employed by creative ol’ dad.

There’s no Chinchilla in my Sesame Street world!

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Four-thirty! Four thirty in the A.M, and I am waking, to the sound of scurrying feet, human, feline, and rodent. The chinchilla, for all my desire to see it other than a big squirrel, is somehow under our bed – bracketed in by curious cats and Sheri at the opposite side. Five minutes after I join the commotion, the chinchilla is backed into Sheri’s arms and plopped back in the cage.
Good morning! If you have ever read “David Copperfield” you would instantly recognize that I live in his home. Where once I was in an irritated, agitated, and unhappy political and social conservative, calling fumigators and cheering cats ability to catch rodents, I now tolerate them as pets and have cats not on duty, but on the bedspread. What next is to happen in my social fabric unraveling? Oh Lord, please do not let me start reading the touchy-feely animal -rights blather! I need a good dose of Sean Hannity or perhaps some Rush Limbaugh , before I rush headlong into my mid-life crisis, a red corvette and a timeshare in the desert!

Thankful for family, food, and good cigars

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Pleasant family memories at Thanksgiving gatherings in America are part of lore – native Americans sitting down with Pilgrims, settlers who first worked the world’s breadbasket, astronauts toasting America with freeze-dried turkey packets from orbit, and servicemen and women protecting freedom in dusty remote lands while enjoying turkey and cranberries. On the other end of the spectrum, some relatives can make some at a family Thanksgiving seek a corner, a couch, car keys. After fifty Thanksgivings, some family gatherings are part of my fondest memories, others I missed for military service and some I would rather forget, but none have been newsworthy nor subject for television.

This time had all the makings of a good time: food, drink and good cigars.Sports: NFL and a few contests of pool.Conflict: apparently the husband of one of my inebriated (and feisty) sister-in-law’s nieces had her in some headlock as an outcome of a drinking contest.Reunion: seeing everybody I’ve missed in the past year. Time spent reminiscing around the fire pit late at night.

Still, I would like to have had the younger members of always expected to have parents and children together at holidays. But I have come to expect this as the exception rather than the rule. I even rented a Ford the household accompany Sheri and me to the in-laws in Arizona this year. It’s Expedition to drive there – since I learned we would have my sister-in-law and kids along too. This was a far cry from the days driving to Arizona in a Jeep with the young boys constantly fighting right behind my ear – to the point I wanted to expel them into the desert. Now there are lessons to be had when driving for a length of time with family. Not even the cockpit luxury of riding in an Expedition can long suppress the expulsion urge I get with family – but I was very lighthearted this time in spite of some who chattered incessantly for 180 miles about her. There is not much lore that is made from the self-indulgent and self-absorbed. Lessons for next time: rent the Expedition again; bring a change of clothes, and perhaps a gag or more snacks to medicate the feisty chattering one – or myself.