The Good (in more ways than one) Book ...

So ...

I haven't written anything in what seems like a very long time. It hasn't been for lack of trying. Wrote a couple of potential entries that I ended up scrapping because they came out all contrived ... like I was trying to hard to entertain my "fans" {all 2 of you!!!}.

The other day I was in a particularly dismal funk ... wanting to write and not being able to put more than three or four coherent words together. I felt sort of like the old adage about the tree falling in the forest ... if nobody hears it, does it really make a sound. "Well, VanO, what good is a blog if nobody reads it." I'm such a melancholy cat ... I'll get over it. As soon as Sister Baby interrupts my brooding with one of her jubilant pronouncements about something mundane to everybody else on the planet but her.

So, I was thinking about my books ... the ones that "perished in the flood." I had some good ones, y'all ... and I do miss them all, but one in particular. It was a King James Bible with a Masonic seal on the front. It looked like this one:


It was my fathers. Sometime shortly after he died in 1974, my mother had given the bible to my older cousin who was a member with my father of the same masonic lodge. Some years later, he happened to open the book and found this written in my father's hand on the inside cover:

"To my oldest son, Van

--Willie Joe Owens"

So he gave it back to me ... I guess I was like 12 or 13 when the book found its way back into my possession. From that time up until it got destroyed I would, from time to time, pick it up. Occasionally I would try to read the contents ... hard to do, couldn't ever get with all the "thee's" and "thou's" ... but mostly, I would just read that inscription on the inside cover. Read it and run my finger across it hoping that maybe by some kind of cosmic phenomenon I could come in contact with that man. Nothin' ever happened but I wasn't done trying. And now the old book is as gone as he is ... and that sucks. It sucks out loud.

But the thought re-energized me when it comes to writing in general and writing this here blog in particular. I'm going to keep it up ... whether I have something entertaining or funny or profound to say or not. It will be a good thing if, some disease or accident should suddenly shuffle me off this mortal coil, my kids have their own inscription ... to know a little about ol' Daddy-O

Was that depressing? Hope not ... Next time I'll say something funny ... I'll try to.

A Gender-Role Call ...

So ...

Mammacita and I have gotten into a Saturday morning groove. She and Sister-Baby get up and get out ... doing dance class, shopping etc. Brother-Man and I stay home and clean-up the house. And I am completely cool with it ... seriously. This is the 21st century and a dude is no less and dude if he does housework. Besides, it makes Mammacita happy and that's the number one rule of this house:

Happy Mammacita = Happy Hacienda!!

But today there was a disturbance to the normal copacetic flow of things, caused by a momentary surge of old-school chauvinism on my part. As Mammacita was leaving today, I said "Honey, are you going to Target today?"

"Yes."

"Would you mind picking me up a new pad for my dishwashing sponge -- I've worn the old one out."

I don't know how she replied because at that moment I thought to myself, "Dude ... what's going on here? You should be the one going out ... to the golf course or the bowling alley or the pool hall or something ... and she should be staying here cleaning the house! Oh, how the mighty have fallen!! What a world, what a world!!! DUDE ... Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot!!!"

For a few minutes I was reeling ... asking myself who wears the apron and who wears the pants in Daddy-O's household? Then my brother called me ... just to relay some necessary logistical information which is why one dude calls another. In the midst of the conversation I felt it necessary to fess up and admit to my shameful lapse in machismo. I told him the whole sad story. I was hoping for some word of wisdom to get me through my current crisis.

"Dude," said my brother (who is a black-belt martial arts instructing city COP), "I spent the morning reorganizing the kitchen cabinets and I'm on my way to the girls' ballet practice. Here's what you need to do: Take your shirt off and go stand in front of your house. Burp, spit, fart, scratch your crotch and get it all out of your system. Then go back in and finish folding the laundry."

Wise man, my brother ... I could go on and on about him but I gotta run now. The pot roast is almost ready!

the saddest minute ...

So ...

Last night something happened to me that happens about two or three times a year -- I dreamed about my late father.

In this dream he was at my Uncle Henry's house, playing pool. Uncle Henry has this grand old antique pool table ... mahogany with a gold felt surface ... makes you feel like you ought to be wearing tweed and smoking a Cuban cigar in it's presence. Anyway, Joe (my father) was there and he challenged me to a game of pool and we played. And while we played we talked about my work and who I should vote for in the coming election and how I was treating my wife and what were the prospects for the Red sox and Patriots this year and all kinds of other things ... things that I imagine grown men talk to their fathers about.

Well, I woke up ... and for that first minute of fuzzy consciousness I thought the dream was real. I could still feel the smooth wood of the cue in my hand and hear the sound of the balls clacking together after each shot. And I could also hear the comforting sound of my father's voice. In that minute, the great incongruity of my existence seems to have been rectified -- all is right with the world and with me. Then, in the next minute, I realize that it was all just a dream and that Joe is still as dead as he has been for 34 years ... in that instant I completely forget what his voice sounded like though I had heard it so clearly just a little while earlier. Then comes the third minute and I'm mourning all over again -- it is the saddest minute (seconded only by the five or six minutes it's taking me to write about it here).

After a while I'll be over it. sometimes it takes a whole day, but I'll get over it. Then I'll be grateful for this and the other sporadic dreams ... they maybe the closest Joe and I will ever get to a "great reunion on the other side."

In the meantime, do me a favor: If your Pops is still around, maybe give him a call or something. Better yet, if he's close by, go pick him up and take him to the pool hall and shoot a little stick. Listen to him. Let him win. Buy him a beer ... and when you clink your bottles together propose a silent toast to Joe and me. Now that would be very cool.

Embracing his corpulence ...

So ...

I was in the second-hand store today, looking for a pair of grey wool pants to replace the ones that I ripped on the sharp corner of a file cabinet. I was approached by a gentleman who looked a good deal more like this photo than I do (though, to be honest, I have to admit that I ain't but a few cheeseburgers and chicken wings away from bearing a remarkably similar appearance).

"Excuse me, sir," the porcine little fellow said to me, "would you let me know if you come across any larger sizes that you don't like? I'm having a hard time finding something that will fit."

I said, "Okay. Sure." But I thought ... dude, seriously? Do I really look as fat as you? Couldn't you fit two of me (okay, one and a half) in your pants?

After getting over being offended, I was self-conscious and wondering how fat I must be for this fellow to think of approaching me with such a request. Then, sometime later, after I got over being insecure, I thought about how this guy had no shame about how he looked. There was no insecurity or shame in him. He knew he was fat and he was okay with it.

So ... three conclusions ...

1. Feel good about yourself (who else will if you don't).


2. Shop thrift stores (I got a brand new pair of $60 pants for less than $10).


3. #1 and #2 are not good excuses ... I still need to get my fat butt to the gym!

First day of fall ...

...and the weather is damp and drizzly. The Patriots lost to Miami yesterday and half the office is out sick. There's an unmistakable something in the air{not really a chill, but something} that says winter is coming. I love the autumn --that famous briskness that allows you to wear your wool and your tweed and your sunglasses -- but would really rather do without winter.

Shemetra says she wants to take a trip somewhere warm this winter, to a place ...

where the sun keeps shining through the pouring rain,
...where the weather suits my clothes,
....banking off of the northeast wind
.....sailing on summer breeze
......skipping over the ocean like a stone ...

Yeah ... I think I might have to take her up on that one!

who i am ...

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog! --Emily Dickenson

I thought about creating a section that would be just about me so everybody will know ... what? How awesome I am? How ordinary or cool or smart?

So maybe I won't say that much. Emily didn't leave me much choice did she? I'm either a nobody or a frog ... I think I'll hold out for a third option.

Here's an interesting exercise ... take the last word in the last line of the last verse of the poem and slide an "L" into it. Kinda makes you wonder ...