Boats

Boats? Some, I love. Others, I loathe.

Some, love-hate. Loved

the sunfish sailboat

in which I learned to sail, at Bible camp, the summer

that I had to try really hard to not be overcome

with my new teen's crush on Anne Walstrom,

who was there that summer.

I loved the simple boats

in which my father and I went fishing

on Lake Spitzer in Otter Tail County, where he

would dip the oars in the water before we set out

so that the six o'clock rowing would not squeak so much

as to wake the other people who slept on the lake--

or drive us crazy.

I like the boats that carry people I love.

I like being helpless in the middle of the water,

too far away from shores 

for any task or responsibility or worry or bother

to touch me.

I like boats, because even though metal is more dense

than water, someone discovered how to make it float—

and sink.

This is how love floats, and sinks us so fast and hard

to the bottom with its gravity from the bombardment 

because it is not just a crush.

Boats.  Some I have loved.

Always.

A Lesson from Harmon Killebrew

My son Sid and his new team mates gathered at the rec center garage to be issued baseball uniforms. It was the day after Harmon Killebrew died. Earlier, Sid read the feature piece in the daily newspaper about Harmon's life and passing. He said it was a good piece and when I read it, I saw that it could only be good because of its subject. What he read was the kind of example of something that makes me feel good to see my son put on a baseball uniform.

Many things, people and events from our childhood can be easy fodder for nostalgia. What else could cause us to turn a blind eye to Ty Cobb carrying a piece of rope from a lynching in his pocket, or the sad stories that followed Kirby Puckett in the last years of his life. (See “'Are You Really KirbyPuckett?'”)

I will not carry a naivete that will convince me that Harmon Killebrew was without sin, a man as perfect as he seemed—who made almost all of his noise with a bat and a quiet, gentle manner but almost none against another player or human being. But his strong silence was a true example. He treated people well, especially kids, for whom an autograph is as valuable as any item that could possibly be bestowed upon her or him.

Many years ago, I was in Arizona during Spring Training with my friend Tom, where the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants were warming up before a game. Things were much more relaxed back then, when a chain linked fence was meant more to keep the ball in play than spectators out.

During a sparsely attended warmup on that late 1980s Scottsdale afternoon, I saw two boys pleading with then A's slugger Jose Cansaco for an autograph. He ignored the boys. “Jose, Jose,” they called. “Please, can we get your autograph? Jose. Jose,” they both called. Nothing. They left disappointed.

Moments later, a young woman who was wearing very little, waving her piece of paper and pen came to the fence. This was something (and for Canseco, I mean something) of value to him. She/this got his attention. He motioned her to jump the fence and run out to him. She did. She got his autograph. What Canseco got, even in the momentary exchange, was more than he deserved from his actions to that point and, given his detailed history as a ball player and as a man off the field, what he deserved at points before and after.

It may be a lesson about the real world, and maybe my values and naivete are just unrealistic, but what the boys could learn from that moment is not something that they could use to make their world a better place.

Harmon helps young boy at Miracle League game in, May 30, 2008. Photo: Mike Peterson, StarTribune.

Last week, I unearthed a commemorative Harmon Killebrew baseball card, a photo of him in his prime that Sid and I picked up at a Twins game years ago. I save everything. There must be a reason. Maybe I am hoping for more lessons. I need more lessons.

Like Killebrew, I am not without sin and certainly have conveyed lessons that are not ones that I care to remember—or for anyone else to carry into their interactions with the rest of their worlds. But Kellebrew's legacy is a lesson about manhood, strength and when to be quiet and those actions that are louder than any words: Lessons like ones I hope to convey on my better days.

And yesterday, as Sid took his cuts in the batting cage, in preparation for his team's first game. I hope he does well. He may not do as well as Harmon Killebrew on Saturday, but I hope he learned a couple of lessons.

One of Sid's chess buddies, Jake, helping a girl with her glove at a Miracle League game in honor of Harmon Killebrew this week.  Photo: Renee Jones Schneider, StarTribune.

This One is not Hers: 1989 Golden 240 Volvo Station Wagon

I see the car. I know it is not hers. I know, because she has been gone for years—at least gone to my world.

This car—it is the same color, the same make, maybe even the same year. The Volvo station wagon: the classic 240 that I helped her find and buy. Golden. Like my Volvo station wagon, only not midnight blue, as my then six-year-old son called it. Sturdy cars, both of them.

Today, the sight of the golden oldie is stunning. Simple old car. Did I tell you I know it is not hers? Did I tell you I know she is not here, at any of the places near the car? Not at the neighboring restaurant, not waiting on my door step, not anywhere near the house.

But even at a distance, I know it is not hers. Not just because I am sure that she has, after many years, graduated to something newer. Not because it has been half a decade since we thought it desirable to talk to each other. I look at the car, and know its nuances are hers. I know they are not the car's either.

I know this from far away, but I have to look. I have to look up and down the block for her familiar figure. I have to look in the window of the restaurant. I have to look at my front and back doorstep. I have to peer through the windshield at the place where her lean silhouette and dark hair ringlets would be... if it was her.

I do not quite press my nose to the windshield. I do not quite look at the window for the telling decal. I do not need to count the blemishes and notice that they are all in the wrong places—but I almost execute all of these things, rituals, even though it is not her.

My heart sighs with relieve and longing and curiosity because it knows it is safe.

Minutes later, two young men come out of the restaurant. They get in the car: Post last-day-of-college-class treat. I see them get in and notice that it is not my seat, nor her seat that is taken by either of them. They drive away. More relief. Now I can try, fruitlessly, to forget—until next time.

Emotional Rescue

I know my father is a very emotional man. It has taken a long time to lean this, and I am still learning it. I've learned this through time, small gains in wisdom, the words of my mother and maybe from being a dad myself. His emotion shows. It shows large, but rarely on his sleeve.  You could say still waters run deep, but the river's current is swift.

There are times when you can't or don't want to show that emotion, let it direct your steps. No one knows this better than any Black man growing up and living in the United States. No one knows this better than a Black father who does not want his children infected even more deeply than the hurt of the racial politics of the sandbox. It's not easy. It is basic for survival. Sometimes, it just comes in handy.

Sometimes, it is nice to not seem so frightened when you are frightened. Sometimes, it makes sense to let everyone else think things are okay when they are not. Sometimes it makes sense to tell yourself and your body that things are okay when they are not.

One evening, at the dinner table, things were not okay. Mom was choking on a piece of meat. Panic. The four of us children sat in stunned, paralyzed terror—a tacit ohmygod, ohmygod, oh... Mom: well, she was choking.

Our hearts were racing, eyes wide, our forks still, no click or clank. Father calmly put down his utensils, got up and walked to the side of mother's chair. He helped her to rise from her chair, got behind her and performed a Heimlich maneuver.

Done, he calmly returned to his seat. So did mother. We all sat, quietly, not quite as if nothing happened, but in a quiet that filled the void of what would have been a collective hysteria.

Just as he had not jumped up like some rescuing hero, like so many men, waiting to see if the cameras where rolling or at least someone was going to identify him as the savior, he did not wait for or want any fawning gratitude or a honey-you-saved-me-my-hero-man-so-superior. He did not treat her like a child. He did not milk the trauma. Is life lessons taught him that doing so was never a good thing.

I think what he would have wanted to say is, “Kids, make SURE you chew your food properly,” but after that event, he really didn't need to.

Maybe that evening, mom and dad shared some thoughts and feelings about the evening's event. I don't know. I am sure that father made sure that it was more about digestion than “saving.” I am sure that both of them were more concerned about the four of us kids. For us kids, it was another of those false lessons that perpetuated illusions of immortality and that even the most scary things can be taken care of by mom and dad.

I know that night was not the only time in his life that my father had to double check his emotions, capturing the energy from the dire urgency while, at the same time, not letting the wildness of that energy derail the solution. He has had to do that with other emotions, as well, for the tears of sorrow and joy, holding his tongue and fists against people who have deserved more than just a tongue lashing or more than a simple slap upside the head.

He does not yell. He does not hit. He will if he has to, on the rare life occasion when such things are truly necessary. (He grew up in a neighborhood where you had to know how to fight.) I am wondering how well I have learned any of those lessons. Sometimes those lessons show more than my emotions. Once in a while, the lesson is lost, and my emotions get the better of me—but not too many people see this. People wonder why I seem so solemn.

So, as I write this, I feel like maybe I have told you more than my family wants you to know. But it is easier today to write this than to write of the events of the past two days that, for some reason, reminded me of this story, about love, anger, fear, how love defeats fear and anger, and of the limitations that our mortal selves put on the infinite capacity of love.

Maybe I can tell today's story soon. Maybe after I have lived a little more of it—or maybe today's story is short enough so that it will achieve the emotional space for telling, a space where I will not jump up in hysteria, begging for attention, a righteous hero.

The only thing I know that fits in today's string of words is that some levels of anger require a lot of love to muster, and hopefully some wisdom lets the love win.

Keep listening. When I learn today's lesson (or think I have), I'll let you know.