It’s raining outside, just as it has been for much of the month. Only this night, it’s really dumping, angry hurtful pellets slapping against my sweat-soaked flesh as I dash ungracefully from the gym to my car. Once behind the wheel, the steam from my body counteracts whatever modest progress the defrost is making, a humid mess I am, not only affected by the high pressure system outside, but also, apparently, by the one from within.

[Read more at BabbleVoices]

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Still, it was always better when your private spot was the entire side of a mountain.

Cal released the tailgate, reached inside the bed and pulled his backpack to the edge. He tightened the strap on the left to secure an aluminum tube before doing the same thing on the other side to make sure his tent was bound tightly enough. 

Once satisfied it was, he slipped his arms through the shoulder straps one after another, the 35 pounds upon his back in a fraction of a second. With a click, he’d fastened his hip belt; with another, the harness across his chest.

Cal grabbed the stabilizing straps which hung from the main compartment and gave each a firm tug to compress the load before pulling the hip-belt strap to stabilize the base of his pack. He then bounced on the balls of his feet as he twisted his torso to and fro, the pack in perfect harmony with his body. Not even so much as a wiggle.

Cal loved it when the load was cinched down just right. When it was so close, so tight, that it felt like an extension of who he was. Because at that point, he was no longer carrying a pack. 

He was carrying his life. 

The first part of the trail was an old logging road with a gradual incline. It ran alongside a stream that rolled through clusters of boulders which were broken up by plunge pools that Cal studied as he trekked.

The old logging road reminded him of the very first trails his dad had taken him on. When he was little. Six. Five, even. Cal’s dad would let him pick their lunch spot on those day trips and Cal always opted for a boulder in the middle of whatever stream they were on. Away from the rhododendron thickets which lined the rocky banks and blocked whatever sunlight had managed to sneak through the canopy of maples. 

Getting to those sun-soaked stones was Cal’s favorite part of those trips, his small hand enveloped by his dad’s calloused one as they hopscotched across.

“The dry rocks can be slippery, too,” his dad would warn. “It’s best not to trust any of them or you’re liable to get hurt. You hear?”

“Yessir.”

Cal made quick work of the six miles, taking two hours to reach campsite 30, the official terminus of the Little River trail. It featured three separate spots, each with its own food hang. No matter which Cal chose, it was unlikely he’d have any neighbors, especially considering what he’d seen at the trailhead.

But he wanted to be sure. So Cal cut into the maze of pines and yellow birches and hiked up a steep incline for another quarter mile until he came to a small clearing which sat 25 feet above the water. 

Cal smiled at the sight of the fire ring, as well as the log which sat before it. He was responsible for both, one he’d fashioned out of stones from the creek bed, the other, a felled pine he’d dragged from the uphill side all those years ago. The first time he’d ever camped there, in the spring of his senior year.

He’d discovered the spot from the water while fishing up from site 30 on the first overnight trip he’d ever taken by himself. Cal wasn’t sure what his mom would say when he asked her permission, but she didn’t even bat an eye. She knew there was nothing to worry about. His dad had taught him everything you could teach a boy about the mountains.  

But by the time Cal was 12, his dad wasn’t going out as much. And the few times he did, he didn’t want any company. That didn’t stop Cal, though. He used to tag along with the regulars from the fly shop whenever they’d go out. It didn’t take too many trips before they realized that Cal knew as much about hiking, camping and fishing the mountain streams as they did. Maybe even more.

So she wasn’t worried at all. The fact that they’d recently moved didn’t even concern her. Cal had hiked and fished the Park since the very first week they’d come to town. Right after football practice, in the heat of August, off he’d go, armed with his rod, a daypack and the map he constantly carried in his back pocket. The one with all the fluorescent streaks, the freshest denoting whichever trail Cal had chosen to be the next one to explore. And he’d explored just about every single one of them.

Yep. It was fine with her for Cal to camp by himself. More than fine. 

So while his friends cruised the boulevard, Cal combed the Park. And once summer came along, he was just as likely to be sleeping in a tent as he was in his own bed. Right up to the day he left for college.

It felt good to be back.

Cal had camp set up by four which left him a couple of hours to fish before he’d have to start thinking about a fire. He opened the aluminum tube and grabbed the rod sock, then pulled out the dark burgundy blanks and pieced them together. Seven feet, ten inches of graphite, the perfect mountain rod. He turned it around and held it close to his body as he stepped deliberately down the steep bank, the worn cork handle leading the way.

Cal stood on top of a large boulder and looked upstream into a brisk breeze. The water was nowhere near as wide as it was at the trailhead, 25 feet to the far bank at the most. But it was moving much quicker, as one might expect at 3,500 feet, rushing down the valley it carved with a roar that kept Cal company.  

He decided to try his luck with a yellowhammer. Some might have thrown a nymph, but Cal preferred a dry fly any day. With a wet one, an angler was beholden to a strike indicator to notify him when a fish had taken the bait. But that’s the exact sort of thing Cal preferred to see with his own eyes.

On his second throw, Cal landed the fly just upstream of a seam he’d been aiming for about 30 feet away. He mended the line to assure the float was unaffected, and a second or two into it, a fish popped out from behind a rock to take a peek. A moment later, it darted forth to claim its morsel.

And that was the moment Cal had his first catch. A little brook trout, its green-brown body accented with red dots along the flank, its fins and tail the same bright hue, no more than seven inches long. Cal loved the brookies because they were such a rare treat, available only to those who were willing to hike far enough to get them.

A lot of fishermen wouldn’t waste their time that high in the mountains, especially to chase fish that small, which was just fine with Cal. Anybody could float the tail-waters in town and catch a big, fat stocker at any one of the well-known holes. That’s why throngs of folks crowded the river each and every weekend. Cal used to fish those waters, too, and he’d pulled out more hogs than most.

But a 20-inch stocker could never excite him the way that little brookie did. Which is not to say he didn’t like big fish. He loved throwing a clouser and wrestling with a feisty smallmouth. As long as it wasn’t stocked. And as long as it swam in the mountains.

Cal was still thinking about the brookies after dinner when he left his warm spot by the fire to wash his dishes in the stream. Not the ten or so he’d caught and released, but the one that had watched the yellowhammer float right on by six different times. With each cast, Cal was certain it would strike, but it never did. What kept that fish off the same fly the other brookies hit? Cal wondered. Blind luck?

Self-preservation?

Cal returned to the fire and packed his stove, pot, fork and plate into a cinch sack which he rolled up to fit inside his food bag when something caught his eye. Something he hadn’t packed. A cookie wrapped in cellophane with a stickie note on it.

Cal,

I’m so glad you finally went to the Park. I hope you have fun in the woods.

I love you.

Mama

So typical. Always doing something nice for others, yet never wanting anyone to do anything for her. She hadn’t even wanted him to move back home. Not on account of her, at least. But he’d come anyway. She greeted Cal by telling him how mad she was that he’d come against her wishes, but the tears in her eyes suggested otherwise.

“You stubborn fool,” she said as she hugged her only child with all her might.

“I love you, Mama.”

He’d been back a week and not a day had passed without her needling. “You can’t just tend to me all day, every day. You need to do something for yourself. You need to go to the Park is what you need to do.”

But Cal didn’t want to. There was too many other things to do. Like meeting with doctors and discussing the different options, not to mention getting settled.

Which he assumed wouldn’t be a problem. After all, he’d come back to visit several times through the years. But visiting for a few days and moving back home were two different things. And Cal found staying in his old room for such an extended period of time to be a bit unsettling. His mom hadn’t touched it, everything exactly as it was in high school. Comforting in a way, this time capsule was. Yet eerie in another as sharing his old room with the past had stirred a few ghosts. Like the ones trapped inside the shoebox he’d found in his closet.

Cal finished his cookie and tossed the crumbled cellophane into the fire and watched it shrivel, then disintegrate with a hiss as he wondered if his mom had any keepsakes of her own. It was that thought which almost prompted him to pack up and hike out, right then and there, with no more than a headlamp to cut through the dark mountain night.

But it didn’t make sense. She didn’t need protection anymore. She needed care. And his aunt had come in town to provide her with just that. Which is why Cal had finally taken his mom’s advice and gone to the Park. 

By the light of his headlamp, Cal found the perfect tree to hang his food from. An old pine, its lowest limb 20 feet off the ground and perfectly perpendicular to the trunk.

On his way back to the fire, he stopped at another tree – the one he’d buckled his pack around. He opened the main compartment and took out the one thing he wasn’t sure he’d bring. It was a little worse for the wear despite the fact he’d packed it on top so it wouldn’t get crushed.

Not that that would have been the worst thing in the world. 

Cal pulled out his knife and made two passes through the masking tape which had been looped around it, one on either side. The tape was brittle with age, providing little resistance to the serrated steel.

He lifted the top and inside the cardboard box sat the letters he knew were there, one on top of another, each folded in three. He grabbed the oldest from the bottom and unfolded it, the light from his forehead giving another life to the words scribbled in pencil. Words that, according to the first line, had graced the paper since October 16, 1989.

Cal’s eyes remained focused on those words, even as he slowly reclaimed his seat atop the felled pine. Right next to the fire.

And the ghosts.

Photo Credit

A few Friday’s ago, my wife and I were channel surfing when we stumbled upon a rare treat. Grease is the word, my friends. And it’s also a classic, one that I first saw at a very young age.

Which is how I started watching the movie. With the wide-eyed wonder of the ten-year-old whose tummy felt all funny inside the first time he saw Sandy, her fair complexion, cardigan sweater, full-length skirt and prudent yet playful ponytail.

But by the end of the movie, my perspective had changed to that of a 42-year old parent.

[read more at BabbleVoices]

So, wow. I thought that Beyonce’s pregnancy got a lot of press, but it certainly pales in comparison to the press that the birth of Blue Ivy Carter has received. Lots to talk about, apparently. Like did Beyonce fake her pregnancy and farm out the dirty work to a surrogate? Or did Beyonce carry the child herself?

And what about the security measures taken by the couple? Some parents are claiming that such measures prohibited them from visiting their own children in the NICU. If true, that’s clearly disconcerting.

But of all the disconcerting elements which have surrounded the arrival of Blue Ivy Carter, none are more troubling to me than the song Jay-Z wrote in celebration of her birth.

[Read more at Babble Voices]

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Love being his dad, but wouldn't wanna be him.

Last week, Babble Deputy Editor Mira Jacobs wrote a post called 12 Reasons Why I Want to be a Toddler Again. Hysterical. Plus, she got me thinking that it really would be great to be a toddler again.

But upon further review, I’ve had a change of heart.

I mean, maybe it’s because I’ve lived with four toddlers already (won’t be long till Grand Finale makes five). And maybe I’m too familiar with this pesky developmental phase, thus immune to its many undeniable charms, but there’s no way in hell I’d ever want to be a toddler again. And here are 10 reasons why.

[read more at BabbleVoices]

Lauren opened the pantry door and raked through the clothes which hung from an old curtain rod that was cut to fit and jimmied between the two walls. Her third time through, she realized she’d ironed in front of the TV the night before, so she walked into the den and over to the alcove window where more clothes hung from yet another old curtain rod.

She was thankful her landlord had offered her the one bedroom apartment after Kate moved home to save for the wedding. But she wasn’t crazy about the shoebox of a closet she’d inherited in the deal. Dresses hanging in a pantry? Blouses doubling as blinds? Not exactly features of her dream home. But it’s not like she had a choice. Besides, she’d find something better soon. And no one ever came over, anyway.

Lauren quickly found the uniforms she was looking for. Three of them. Each hanging crisply on a white metal hanger. She pulled out the middle one and considered it in the morning light. They hadn’t changed in 20 years.

When she was little, Lauren had always assumed that the light pink outfits were a blouse-skirt combo until her favorite waitress, Peggy, showed her otherwise one day by lifting her red apron and exposing the buttons which ran all the way down the front. Lauren was delighted. She loved to be in-the-know on little secrets like that.

Lauren also loved watching the busy waitresses in action. Carrying small round trays loaded with waters as they zipped from table to table. Scribbling down orders on the fancy green notepads. But most of all, Lauren loved to watch the waitresses place their orders with the man in the white hat with the five-o-clock shadow who stood behind the window.  

They always got every single thing they ordered, exactly as they had ordered it. In mere minutes, to boot. How Lauren wished that she had that kind of power. To get whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it.  

Yes. Lauren loved watching the waitresses. And she loved their light pink uniforms. She thought they were beautiful. Glamorous, even. She often wondered how she’d look in one.

And now she knew. 

Lauren hung the uniform on the bedroom doorknob on her way to the kitchen where she grabbed a coffee mug from the cupboard to the right of the fridge. She eyed the displaced pantry items that were neatly organized on the countertop below until she located the sugar. Three tablespoons later, she poured her coffee, careful to leave just enough room for the cream before placing the plexiglass pot back on its burner and turning it off.

Lauren drank her coffee in the living room, sitting on the sofa in her robe as she stared at a small color TV. The local morning show. She flipped aimlessly through the channels until she landed on something that caught her eye. She sat up, then adjusted the volume and watched intently as a narrator with a British accent detailed the countless amenities of a picturesque tropical setting. 

Lavish hotels. Five-star restaurants. Palatial casinos. Boutique-lined streets where beautiful women shopped for whatever they wanted, as if such women wanted for anything. And the Caribbean Sea, its waters breaking on the white sands of a place called Aruba. Crystal blue and beckoning. Or mocking, perhaps.

During a commercial break, Lauren went back to the alcove window, pushed the clothes to one side and peeked outside where she saw what she suspected she might – a flat gray sheet of frost which covered the lawn behind the parking lot as well as the windshields that stared back at her. 

“Looks like I’m walking to work,” she said out loud. The diner was only a mile away and in the time it would take for her windshield to defrost, she’d practically be there. Lauren pushed the clothes back to the center, then grabbed her uniform from the doorknob as she went into her bedroom. Once changed, she looked at herself in the mirror on the door of her real closet. How she ever found such an outfit to be glamorous was beyond her. No matter how young and dumb she was. 

She consulted the overcrowded closet until she found the red cashmere coat she’d bought the last time she was in Hunstville. She separated it from the rest of the clothes with the back of her hand and gently pulled it out. 

“Now this,” she said, slipping in one arm, then the other, “is glamorous.” With a final and approving nod, she started out the door. Until the reflection of the dresser stopped her in her tracks.

A turn and three steps later, she was at the bureau, staring at the mahogany box which sat on top. It was flanked by two pictures. The one on the left was of Kate and Lauren right after Cal scored the touchdown that put them ahead in the state championship game with a minute to go.

It was one of her favorite pictures. But it also made her sad. The pretty cheerleaders with the victory smiles had no idea that moments later, a last-second field goal would reduce them to tears. Each time she looked at it, Lauren felt like she knew more than she was supposed to. Or like she didn’t know very much at all. She wasn’t sure which. Or, for that matter, which was worse.

The picture to the right of the box was of the waitresses at the diner. Like most times she looked at it, Lauren’s eyes immediately found Peggy, still beautiful after all these years, her thick mane of wavy hair worn up, no longer brunette, but instead a dignified shade of gray. Crow’s feet framed big brown eyes that still sparkled of youth. 

Lauren wondered how some things changed so much while others hardly changed at all as she carefully opened the mahogany box. 

Inside sat a silver cross pen between two stacks of index cards. The ones on the left were blank. The ones on the right each had something written on them. Lauren grabbed the pen and a blank card and jotted down a single word upon it before placing the card on top of the right-hand pile.

Lauren then closed the box and turned to leave. Her feet took her to work while her mind took her somewhere else, entirely.

Aruba.

Photo Credit

Hard to believe that 2011 is coming to a close. Okay, no it’s not. That’s just something people say. It’s hard to believe that summer’s already here. Or, I can’t believe you’re such a big boy already. Why is it that people have such a hard time believing that time passes us by? It’s so utterly…believable.

Even so, there are times which strike me as more profound than others. And the end of the year is one such time, possibly because it’s such a natural period of reflection. Which is exactly why I decided to make my final post of 2011 a reflective one.

[Click here to read more and see the pics]

Photo: woodleywonderworks

Twas the night before Christmas, and since we have kids,
It’s sorta amazing, the stuff we just did.
The holiday meal we prepared with great care.
The toys we assembled while slightly impaired.

We stuffed all the stockings, and wrapped all the gifts.
And even remembered to hook up St. Nick.
With cookies and milk — the rules of engagement.
And carrots for Rudolph — the standard arrangement.

[Finish reading at BabbleVoices]
Photo credit

Every kid loves Christmas. But that’s not to say that the season doesn’t have a few low spots. Because it does. And as parents, it’s important to identify some of these low spots, especially now that we’re heading into the heart of the holiday season. You know, to help shield our little ones from potential unpleasantrie, thereby enabling them to have the best Christmastime experience possible.

It’s in that spirit that I offer you the following list of the 7 worst things about Christmas as experienced by your child.

You can thank me later.

[click here to see the 7 Worst Things slide show on BabbleVoices]

 Photo Credit

I told myself that I’d never write a vasectomy post. But apparently I lied, which I’m totally comfortable with given this whole Santa Claus scam I’ve been clobbering my kids over the head with. (Say what you want about the jolly fat bastard, but you gotta give him this: he makes December bedtimes a LAY UP.)

See, I wasn’t gonna write about the big V because I believe that vasectomy posts are overdone. But a coupla things occurred to me shortly after the procedure as I sat in bed watching TV in a pain-pill-induced stupor. First, there’s no shame in crying at the end of Home Alone. It’s a tender reunion between an abandoned, vulnerable little boy and the mother who never meant to leave him.

[read more at BabbleVoices]

Photo courtesy of Loimere via Creative Commons