I Dig When it Rains

By now, Prince is tucked in for eternity, lying peacefully in the resting place I dug for him Sunday afternoon in the rain. It almost always rains when I’ve got to dig a grave. Rained last year when I buried my cat, Gandalf, a.k.a. Pointy.

Once, though, when I buried a dog named Rain, it didn’t rain. That was probably five or six years ago. Rain was my friend Julianne’s dog, and he lived a good life. Ditto for Prince. Julianne’s daughter LizZ brought him home when he was two. In the 12 years since, he’d become a great and trusted companion to that family, which includes his two surviving adopted canine siblings, Annie and Kip.

People who live in or drive through the Valley probably remember seeing Julianne and Prince walking along the trail at the community center. And if you ever met him, you know that he didn’t bark. He spoke variations of the word “Arooo” through a pronounced ‘O’ in his mouth.

He had crystal sky blue eyes, not unfriendly (unless you were a chicken that one time I know about), but something wild, the eyes of an affable, mostly domesticated dog that ran with coyotes and befriended a skunk. Understand, he never got sprayed by the skunk – they were “let’s hang out together” friends. When Prince found his pungent pal lying dead on the road, he lay on the ground next to him, and mourned.

It was Julianne’s idea to dig the hole deep and wide and in advance – and make no mistake, she was out there, too, with her shovel, and her tears, which stood out from the rain on her face – because a good and kind veterinarian was planning to visit Prince on Monday morning, to ease him from his suffering, and Jules wanted to be ready, so Prince could make a speedy transition and pick up his backstage pass to the universe while safely ensconced in the Earth.

It was my honor on plenty of occasions to feed Prince when Julianne was away for an extended period. And without fail, roamer that he was, the dog was always there to greet me with a sincere “Aroooooo …” I will miss our conversations, and the way his thick fur felt. He wasn’t a dog that needed petting, but he allowed it and seemed to enjoy it.

Anyway, grave digging … I’d rather write about it than do it.

Who enjoys digging graves? I’m not talking about archaeologists or that kind of shit. I mean fresh graves. No one likes it. Guys trying to hide bodies do it out of necessity, not because they have a fetish for shovels. And professional gravediggers do it for a paycheck, not because they chose it at the high school job fair. And “dig graves, just like my old man” has never been the answer to, “what do you want to do when you grow up?”

You dig a grave out of love and/or respect, or out of obligation, or guilt, and like almost everything else, including altruism, we do it for ourselves, because even though it sucks to dig a grave, you’re helping a friend, and that makes you feel good, and it takes your mind off the grim inevitability of your own demise, all while you’re dealing in the traditional infrastructure of death.

But mostly, its love and respect … although I dug a grave out of pity once. A poor dog that I barely knew had been left tied to a tree in a thunderstorm, by a negligent (and devastatingly stupid) human, and got struck by lightning.

That was a pity dig. Oh, and it rained.

Didn’t rain with Rain, though. That was a tough grave to dig because it was hard, dry ground in the woods, among the roots. Fortunately, Prince was there helping, and he was more graceful than I, using the tools he was born with. But honestly, I was more impressed with his attitude than his digging.

Prince will be missed, and while his passing allows me to reflect on all the great (and not so great) dogs I have known, and friendship, and grave digging, it also allows me to say “goodnight, sweet Prince,” and sincerely mean it.

Widespread Panic Concert Review

So, I heard a sentence the other day that I never heard before. In fact, I didn’t think it existed, so this sort of qualifies as a new discovery.

Me and Bill and Glenn were floating away from the shuttered Shakedown the other night after the Widespread Panic concert, and we were begging some poor cab driver for a ride back to the hotel, but she was waiting on a fare, so we kept floating on the Alpharetta backroads.

Two young neo-hippies who overheard our pleas to the cabbie came along in their hatchbacked car and offered us a ride. The woman, who was driving, was very pregnant, a few weeks shy of delivery. The man, on the passenger side, looked and sounded like one of the Squidbillies given three dimensions (though I suspected a fourth and probably a fifth).

Bill found these glasses then saved our lives.

“It’d cost ya a hundred bucks in a cab,” he slurred as Glenn opened the door.

“Will you take 10 for gas?” I asked the woman, who was driving. I handed her a sawbuck (partly because I’ve always wanted to use the word “sawbuck” and partly because it was a 10 dollar bill). Then I squeezed in the backseat after Glenn. Bill contorted himself into the hatchback.

“Sorry ‘bout the baby seat in the back, we’re trying to think ahead,” she said as we settled in for a short ride.

We’d driven only a few yards, and the conversation had already turned to chemistry, when the hippie woman said the rare (and probably valuable) sentence: “The problem with being pregnant is I can’t do as much acid as I’d like.”

Took a second for it sink in. If I’d been on my game that night, and been more evil, I would’ve said, “Well, look at it this way: you’re tripping for two, now, so maybe you should consider taking twice as much.”

But I didn’t say that. Instead, Glenn and I tried to process what she’d said, and Bill started saving our lives from the back.

“Stop the car and let us out,” he said. Not because of the woman’s remark, but because he was being poked and prodded by unseen metal objects in the back. Felt like tools, or maybe guns.

The hippie woman kept driving, in the wrong direction.

“Let us out now,” Bill said, louder, with a bit more intention.

Glenn and I were all like, “what the hell is wrong with you, Bill? Chill out.”

But Bill kept saying, “Stop the damn car and let us out!”

At one point, the Squidbilly guy said, “Hey, I know my Second Amendment rights!”

That’s when I joined Bill in a chorus of, “stop the car and let us out.” Not Glenn, though. He’s like Gallant from the old Goofus and Gallant cartoon strip, he sees the best in everyone. To him, these were just two peaceful hippies (“From South Carolina, Glenn? Did you see their license tags?”) trying to spread the love and help some old guys out with a ride to the hotel.

To Bill’s more worldly point of view, these two hippies were Manson family descendants.

Finally, she did pull over. Her old man wasn’t happy. He opened the hatchback and almost tossed Bill out. As they drove off, a disappointed Glenn said, “what the hell just happened?”

Bill basically said, “they were gonna rob and kill us!”

I said, “they just robbed me of 10 bucks (the word ‘sawbuck’ not having occurred to me yet).”

But I got off lightly. In their hurry to leave the hippie car, Glenn had left the $25 t-shirt he’d purchased earlier, and Bill left a poster and a bottle of moonshine (available by the mason jar at the Shakedown, but not particularly good, definitely not Sautee Nacoochee quality).

So, we walked the backroads of Alpharetta until a cab drove by. We yelled at him, and he stopped, gave us a ride, and it didn’t cost a hundred bucks. Stupid Squidbilly hippie.

Later, as we watched one lonely cop patrol the inside of the Embassy Suites (literally sniffing the air in front of each and every door, and saying to no one in particular, over and over again, “you telling me you can’t smell that? You telling me you can’t smell that?”), we shared our theories.

Bill, of course, suspected foul play. Glenn thinks the Squidbilly was scared and thought Bill was a cop who had discovered his stash of weapons in the back of the car, and that’s why he mentioned his Second Amendment rights, whereas I suggested they weren’t after our money, just our lives, imagining bottles of preserved, glassy-eyed human heads in their basement back in South Carolina, each head labeled by date, venue and setlist.

Guess we’ll never know.

Anyway, the concert was really good. I would definitely see the band again if given the chance.

42: Life, the Universe and Jackie Robinson

The film version of my favorite moment in baseball history.

The addled mind needed rejuvenation last night at the end of an all-to-real surreal and senseless day. Innocent people in Boston were bleeding and dying from a devastating act of pitiless cowardice, a good and kind friend was robbed in Atlanta (and lost some irreplaceable personal items), and a dependable and beloved Athens soup kitchen was destroyed by fire.

All in all, a wretched Monday, one for the books.

But it was also Jackie Robinson Day, and that’s the day I woke up to, the day I anticipated, as I do most years. It’s the day when everyone wearing a Major League Baseball uniform dons Robinson’s No. 42, which is also the answer to life, the universe and everything, according to Douglas Adams.

In a way, April 15 is the only religious holiday in baseball, commemorating the day Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers, the first black man to play in the major leagues since they adopted Jim Crow laws in the 19^th century, banning generations of black ballplayers.

But thanks to Branch Rickey’s enlightened self-interest (and sense of fair play), Robinson was invited to break the color barrier, and the game became the Game, finally living up to its label as the National Pastime.

By late Monday night, my brain and heart were reeling and virtually empty of spiritual nutrition – oh, I was running on some sweet transcendental fumes, because the wife took me to yoga class with her early in the evening, and it really did help. Still, I needed the kind of octane boost and rejuvenation that baseball has always given me; a silly game, which has been my source of irrational joy and American pride and celebration, but also my safe haven, a pacifying salve.

I know exactly what James Thurber meant when he wrote, “The majority of American males put themselves to sleep by striking out the batting order of the New York Yankees.”

So, I went by myself to see the late showing of 42 at the local cinema. I’m not equipped to take this film apart and offer a cogent review. I’ll leave that kind of heavy lifting to my friend Erik Lundegaard, who is a great baseball fan, wonderful writer and terrific and insightful movie reviewer. I’m looking forward to reading what he has to say because I always learn something, and this is a movie we both have been waiting for.

Anyway, my two-bits’ worth:

Yes, the movie does fall into some of the traditional baseball film routines, and there were a few times when I thought to myself, “Ah, The Blacktural.” In some ways resembling most of the baseball biopics that came before – you get a glimpse into the subject, some hero worship, but very little depth. Think of the movies you’ve seen about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, for example.

In 42, in scene after scene, we are told exactly how we are supposed to feel: Jackie was the Jesus of baseball, especially when Harrison Ford, as Branch Rickey, gets going on a Biblical-tinged spiel. But then, Rickey was a proud Methodist. Of course, we easily sympathize with Robinson, played well by Chadwick Boseman (who even looks the part).

Knowing the kind of opposition the rookie and the Dodgers will face, Rickey elicited a promise that probably helped shorten Robinson’s life, ultimately. “I want a player with the guts not to fight back,” Rickey says.

Pitchers throw at Robinson, who leads the league in being hit by pitches. Baserunners spike him. He gets called every vile name in the book. His wife and infant son are threatened. Imagine turning the other cheek, holding all of that rage inside, forcing to keep your hands at your hips instead of striking back when you have every right and instinct to do so. The stress Robinson must have felt – he was only 53 when he died, and I do believe the stress took its toll.

We do get to see Robinson’s rage boil over — in private, when he destroys a bat in the walkway between the clubhouse and the dugout, and Boseman almost brought tears to these eyes. The scene where Pee Wee Reese (played by Lucas Black) famously puts his arm around Robinson in a show of defiant support before a nasty Cincinnati crowd actually did bring a tear (in fact, this is my favorite scene from baseball history, has been from the first moment I saw the old black and white photo). The point is, it’s got to have long-lasting effects, burying your true self day after day after day, while grown men throw fastballs at your head.

The movie never lets on that Rickey cut Robinson loose from his passivity promise after three seasons – so we never get to see the gloves come off, we never see Jackie fully armed and loaded and playing furious ball, because we’re not supposed to (though there would have been some emotional satisfaction – instead we get that when Robinson’s teammates finally start standing up for him).

The film’s story focuses on just a couple of years, 1945-1947, and while we don’t see enough of the inner combustion that drove Robinson, we do see broad images of the ridiculous and evil challenges he had to overcome – most notably Ben Chapman, the virulently racist redneck manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, played lustily by Alan Tudyk (“Wash” from the sci-fi TV series Firefly).

The baseball scenes are fabulous, the story is moving, the acting is fine. I’m a sucker for baseball movies. I even sat through The Slugger’s Wife when it was in theaters. It hurt like hell, but I sat through it, just as I’ve sat through plenty of 8-1 Braves’ losses (especially when they really sucked, in the 70s and 80s). I’ll probably see 42 again in the theater, and hopefully very soon.

But nothing can match the first time, and here’s why. The 9:45 showing was almost empty – me, four teenaged boys, and an older African-American couple who had, between them, read every biography of Robinson and gave the film a thumbs up for sticking closely with the source material, and the emotional wallop.

What was really interesting, though, was the crowd from the 7:10 showing – a busload of kids from Bulloch Academy down in Statesboro, on a field trip to Northeast Georgia. Bulloch is one of the remaining “segregation academies” in Georgia – the all-white private schools that were founded immediately after county school boards voted to finally acquiesce to federal law.

There is no Judge Landis to keep black students from enrolling at Bulloch (or the other remaining academies), and no overt gentlemen’s agreement barring the doors. But apparently, there aren’t any black kids in the school (according to privateschoolsreport.com).

But there is something oddly satisfying about an all-white school making a point to see a movie about a black man who was a baseball and Civil Rights pioneer; a perfect kind of historical symmetry, because these white kids are from Statesboro, where 50 years ago, a 12-year-old African-American (http://fourcrickets.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/the-inning-of-a-lifetime/) became the youngest player to appear in a professional game (Class D minor leagues), and the first black person to play in an all-white league.

They haven’t made that movie yet.

Speaking of the Kid, On Another Note …

My family has one great super weapon in our favor. Her name is Jane. She’s the woman of immeasurable patience and grace who has stuck with my sorry mug all these years (many years, which are too few years to spend with someone like Jane). Anyone who knows her, knows all the reasons why.

But here’s something you probably don’t know, because it just happened.

Jane was honored last week with the Philip Wright Award for White County. According to the program, the awards “honor a legacy created by Mr. Wright in his strong commitment to improving the educational services for students with disabilities in the school systems located in the Pioneer RESA region. Local school districts select an individual who demonstrates the qualities exemplified by Mr. Wright of service, deep respect and regard, commitment, and advocacy so that the lives of children with disabilities are impacted in a positive manner.”

This is an award that Jane could win every year. This is an award that could easily be named for Jane Grillo.

Congratulations to my wife for being recognized by the good people in our local school system who know a force to be reckoned with when it rocks their very existence. Now I’m looking forward to shaking Philip Wright’s hand.

Loud, Graphic, Measured Desperation

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau

My desperation is sometimes quiet, and sometimes loud and messy, and keeps me awake at night (like, lately). Why do you think I post all those pictures of my kid in living color on the social network? Because I’m trying to impress you? Well, I am, sort of. What it really boils down to, I think, is a measured form of loud desperation.

Like so many other parents of children with special needs, I’m leading a life of many decibels of desperation. Those pictures of my son, recklessly plastered all over the social network? I’m desperate for you – for the world, really – to fall in love with him, or, at the very least, respect him, maybe even develop a sense of responsibility for all kids like him. And by kids, I mean human beings, so please don’t get wrapped up in ageism. We’re all kids, and I want the world to love mine, because someday I won’t be around to take care of him.

Love may endure, but I don’t think my enduring love can ensure clean clothing, good food, superhero stories, and a warm, safe bed for him when I’m not around, or when my wife isn’t. We know our daughter is the best big sister he could possibly have, and she’ll step up when and if the time comes, but you know, this is a marathon that requires many people to help one person run a good race, and that’s why I post the photos. Big love is way better than no love, and too many caring hands are better than two or too little.

If you look at the pictures of him in his baseball uniform, or greeting people somewhere in the community (he is “Joe on the Go,” after all), or doing whatever, you can see that he is a worthwhile person, someone interesting that you’d like to know; that he is one of the universal us, and you can see that he (and we who care for him) don’t need or want pity, or regret, or any of that bullshit. Love and respect and open minds, empathy and a sense of responsibility, though, are entirely different (and valued) matters.

I’ve got a lot of company in the world – fathers and mothers and caregivers of children with special needs, and some are of the quiet desperation model, which is what the world historically preferred.

Some are stubbornly quiet in their desperation. “Ain’t no one’s business, this is about me and mine!” To them I say, sincerely, “good luck,” but I could give two shits for their quiet desperation.

You want to suffer bravely in silence somewhere, wallow in your own personal hell at your child’s or family’s or your own expense, disengage from the world you are inevitably sucking from anyway, that’s your choice. Go for it. But this is my son, and I don’t expect to outlive him, and therefore haven’t afforded myself the luxury of false pride, or private, misanthropic self-pity. So, my wife and I are out of the closet with him, putting him in front of parades, posting his picture (and the fact of him, and his peers) wherever we can.

There was a time when kids like my son were placed in isolated corners like potted plants, watered and fed and grown, and little else, and that was just fine (when it wasn’t the only choice) for some parents, and that was the upside. Massive swaths of humanity lived unseen, people suffering unimaginably, often lacking the capacity to understand the excuses for why.

I’ve met enough 60-somethings who survived such corners, such dark rooms, and it can be both heartbreaking and uplifting to see their phoenix beauty in front of you while knowing the ashen horror behind them.

The good thing is, desperation isn’t a constant, nor is it often, and it may not even be the right word, but sometimes it is, at 3 or 4 in the morning, when the thought-track goes, over and over, “what about when you’re not around?”

We’re working on getting his room in the world ready. It’s a lifelong chore, enlightening, difficult, lonely, worthwhile, sometimes wide-open joy (there is at least as much joy as there is desperation), and a lot of impossible-to-answer questions. The pictures and the tireless PR on the boy’s behalf, that’s just one way of hedging our bets. For now, the only guarantee I can make my son is that he will never experience a shameful hidden corner at the hands of other humans while I’m around, because no one wants to fuck with a desperate man.

No Insect Humanoid Army? Bummer.

It was only a matter of time before I sidled up to the gun crowd and joined their determined campaign to whine about an intrusive gummit.

I used to think that a lot of that crowd was just paranoid, maybe a little delusional, dangerously insane and willfully misinformed, previously by Ben Hur, and now by a bespectacled guy who apparently wants to give handguns to hall monitors in schools or some such. But I don’t think that any more!

Now, I’m seriously considering joining their waddling ranks when they rise, with some effort, from the well-worn ass-grooves in their recliners to declare and defend, through the placement of mass-produced Facebook missives, their Constitutional right to carry bazookas and V-1 rockets and so forth. I’ll be with them, not because of the gun thing, but because of their ironclad principles, because they dare to pursue their dream of an America filled with well-armed Americans.

See, I also have a dream, the simple American dream of a simple American man. All I ever wanted was to develop a race of insect-humanoids, preferably six-foot-long ants with human heads in place of ant heads. But now, that dream is about to be dismantled by the wrecking ball of soul-crushing legislation.

The Georgia version of pro-life political leadership wants to to limit research involving human embryos and other genetic material. They have proposed a bill designed to, among other things, criminalize any attempt to create a human-animal hybrid. Goodbye dream. Apparently, “pro-life” doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.

But this isn’t just about creating giant insects that wear hats and have eyebrows and speech. No, this is about all of our hopes and dreams, all of our rights – your right to hunt squirrels with a Barrett M82 sniper rifle, or small nuclear device; my right to post a sign in my front yard that says, “Beware of Antmen,” and have something besides the failed experiments in my basement to back it up.

I understand the pro-gun crowd a little better now. I, too, feel dispossessed by my government, abandoned – nay, beset upon!

Wake up, America. Today it’s your guns. Tomorrow it could be your clones. What would Thomas Jefferson do? He’d probably play a trick on that stifling prig John Adams, but eventually he’d do the right thing. Now it’s our turn. Let’s do the right thing. Do it for the children. Do it for America. And, lest we forget, go Braves.

The Christmas Glow

The yuletide switch got turned on again. Happens every year, and if it wasn’t for that switch, I might be glowing all year, because there would be nothing to interrupt the flow of electrons swimming in my atoms. But this year it’s like the Fates have installed a million watt bulb.

So, the switch got turned on. And I remember when it happened. It was the moment just before Tommy Deadwyler started pulling all of those smoked turkeys apart for the Thanksgiving feast in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Scottish Rite.

My son Joey was completing his second week in the hospital, and was coming out of the drug induced stupor that was helping his body heal from effects of an the all-out assault by a mysterious infection, effects that included a life-threatening bout with pneumonia. The day before Thanksgiving was a graduation of sorts as the tube that had been helping Joey breathe was removed, allowing his recovering lungs to do the work on their own.

What followed was several days of methadone, a pain reliever and detox agent to help bring him down from the extended doses of morphine and other drugs that were keeping him subdued and essentially comatose.

But, by Thanksgiving, he was back; partly back, back enough for him to open his eyes, to smile, to turn the switch on. And what light. Have you ever been spelunking? Caving? It’s the darkest dark you’ll ever experience. Jane and I went a few times, years ago. Burrowed down into the opaque underworld through an innocuous hole in the woods. At one point, maybe a half mile into the cave, our guide asked us to turn off our helmet lights. Everyone did. He said, “see how long it takes your eyes to adjust.” They didn’t adjust. There was no seeing through the universal dark. And that’s what the weeks just before Thanksgiving felt like.

Then he was back, and the switch flipped, and my eyes are still adjusting to the light. It absolutely made for a great Thanksgiving, in every sense of the word and the holiday. Adding to the inner neon tapestry that day was the arrival of our amazing and loving friends, Tommy Deadwyler and Terri Edgar, who decided that they would like to spend their Thanksgiving holiday with Joey and us on the third floor of the hospital. About the second they arrived, we got the word that Joey was leaving the PICU. He was strong enough to move to a regular room, to begin a two-week run of recovery that finally led us back home.

While Tommy and I were standing there near Joey’s bed, and the nurses and technicians were doing the careful work of disassembling the pinging (and now uneccessary) equipment that had been keeping my son alive, when one of the floor’s veteran nurses came into the room and pointed at me and said, “I need you. We’ve got 12 turkeys that need to be carved for the family Thanksgiving dinner.”

So I pointed to Tommy and said, “he’s your man.”

This is a hospital, though, and not a kitchen, so we didn’t have adequate cutlery. So I spent the next hour pulling smoked turkeys from a gigantic cooler, placing them in front of my best friend, and watching as he pulled them apart with his hands, deftly segregating the white and dark meet, the drumsticks and the wings. We filled at least half a dozen platters for our floor, then followed our boss nurse lady through a maze of hallways to deliver trays of turkey to another family feast taking shape in the rehab unit half a hospital away.

Tommy also says it was the best Thanksgiving he’d ever had, and it occurred to us both that maybe there were better ways to spend that food-centric holiday then we’d previously thought. Giving thanks, and then just giving.

And now it’s Christmas, it’s the Yule, it’s the next chapter in the Fall-Winter holiday season, and we’ve been home from the hospital for three weeks. Our community has helped settle us back into the Sautee Nacoochee day-to-day. They arrived en masse a couple of days after we got home, bringing a Christmas tree and their loving voices, caroling us in the front yard, keeping the switch solidly in the on position.

The best holiday gift is sitting on the couch now, next to his mother, watching The Christmas Story. My mother is sitting nearby. Incredible smells are coming from the kitchen, the tree is lit, Darren McGavin is speaking in nonsensical curses, and my boy, who almost left the world a month or so ago, is here and healthy, my daily reminder, when I’m paying attention, of how precious the precious things are.

Yes, my heart and mind are in no small amount of agony for friends, family and strangers who are not as fortunate as I am; for an old high school friend who just lost his beautiful daughter; for the people in Newtown (and everywhere) facing such unimaginable, sudden losses; for the man with no feet who was panhandling in Helen, who my wife tried to help a few days ago (she tried to find him again yesterday, but he was gone). There is plenty of agony to go around, all of it worth our sincerest healing efforts, whatever that might be.

But ultimately, in this second, I’m feeling the glow, and for that I can feel no guilt or remorse — just very lucky. It’s good to have a home, and it’s really good to be there. I’m going to endeavor to keep the switch on a bit longer than usual.