Chapter One
Yesterday
My name is Mick. Not Michael or Mickey. Mick.
I had what I would guess to be a normal midwestern upbringing in a (semi) normal family. Dad (Ralph) was also raised in the Midwest, corn fed and had a rock solid set of down to earth values (as you will see, “rock” is the operative word here). Mom (Faith) grew up on the East Coast. It’s miraculous that they met because they are the perfect match for each other. They had two great kids, me and my big brother, Jagger. Yeah, Mom and Dad were huge Stones fans in the day. They were also Led Zeppelin fans. To hear Dad tell it, he wanted to name me “Page” and name Jagger “Plant.” I think he also briefly considered “Pink” and “Floyd.” Luckily, that was just another in a long series of discussions with Mom where she carried the day. Thank God Jagger and I came along a few years before Lynyrd Skynyrd hit it big.
My folks pretty much love all “classic” rock. In their minds, the majority of rock music from the mid-sixties to the end of the seventies is considered “classic.” Jay (what Jagger quickly morphed to) and I learned not to use that phrase within their hearing distance. It’s not classic rock, it’s the only rock. That point was driven home by our first (and hopefully last) fatherly ninety minute lecture on the total domination of the AC/DCs and ZZs of his day over the Duran Durans and REMs of ours. The fact that we weren’t particularly REM or Duran Duran fans didn’t slow him one iota. Jay and I got the only spanking I can recall the day we were playing Frisbee with Dad’s treasured Triumvirat album and it somehow wound up on the roof.
We lived in the small town of Fairview on the outskirts of Akron, Ohio. We had what I now think of as a modest Marcus Welby home (white wood siding, blue shutters, small picket fence, two dormers, not enough bathrooms, neat as a pin, etc.). I guess it could be described as a very Norman Rockwell type upbringing if Norman Rockwell had included golf courses and Stratocasters in each of his works.
Dad stood about six one and weighed about one sixty soaking wet with steel toed boots on. Why he’d be soaking wet wearing steel toed boots, I don’t know. He was a kind, gentle, fair man and a true hoot. With his small round plastic rimmed glasses, crew cut, button down shirts and skinny ties, he looked like a cross between Arnie the Accountant and Eddie the Engineer. But just as one should never judge the proverbial book by its cover, one should never assume that Dad was conventional or boring. For one, he loved to tell highly entertaining (to him) stories about his exploits in the sixties and early seventies before he settled down and became “Mr. Family Dude.” I think he tended to embellish just a bit. I understood about half of what he told me and believed even less. Of course, he knew this. It was why we got along so well. But, strangely enough, most of his advice was priceless and sticks with me to this day.
“Son, I don’t want you thinking that everything I did was the right thing to do. In fact, most of it is just the opposite of what a great kid like you should do. But I tell you these things to teach you a lesson about life. I had to learn the hard way.”
Dad was definitely blessed with the gift of gab. Fortunately, he also had an enormous sense of humor and a very high level of tolerance for two smart-aleck boys.
“Dad, you’re sounding like Ward Cleaver again. So what’s the story and moral this time? And if I have heard it before, I’ll let you get near the end then blurt out the punch line before you do…again.”
“I’ll take that deal since my sage wisdom is never repeated twice.”
“What about the same stories you tell me every six weeks regarding the evils of fast women and sloe gin?”
“Those are fundamental tenants of life, not sage wisdom. So, as I was saying, this was back when one of the two greatest decades in the history of the world was coming to an end. It was late sixty-nine and I had not yet met your mother. I was dating the tour manager for the Kinks…”
“Uh huh.”
“Ok, her cousin went to school with the sister of the tour manager for the Kinks. Anyhow, she was a stunner. Nothing like your mother, of course, but a stone cold fox none the less.”
“A what cold what?”
“Sorry, I sometimes forget you were not a member of the ‘hep’ generation.”
“Which is now the ‘try not to break a hip’ generation.”
“Whatever. Anyway, one night we were cruising in my new cherry red Vette…”
“Rusty Vega.”
“Ok, my Vega with more Bondo then metal. She wanted me to scout out a local supplier so she could score some happy juice…”
“Find a 7-11 where you could buy her a Mountain Dew.”
“Yeah, like I said, happy juice. So I pulled my hotrod into this skanky looking place. It was so bad that it had been demoted to a 6.5 -10. I mean the rats in the parking lot were so big that they had Chihuahuas for pets. It was…”
“Ok, Pop, I get the general picture. Let’s try to keep the narrative in a forward gear.”
“No problembo. So, being the suave and cool dude I was back then, I left the motor running with some Zep cranked up on WMMS and dashed in the store to buy her some liquid love. When I come back to the car, you won’t believe…”
“She switched channels and was grooving to some soft jazz?”
“Nothing that bad. No, she’s outta the car leaning on my sort of shiny chrome engaging in a major lip lock with Dewey ‘Moose’ Mankowitz.”
“The starting center for the Fighting Weasels?”
“The one and only. And this guy is bigger than the house that fell on the Wicked Witch.”
“I also heard he had some real snap between his legs.”
“Hey, while that is very funny, I don’t work with a partner. And wash your mouth out with an Ivory bar when we get home.”
“Whatever you say, Pop.”
“So, anyway, my hands are rolled into balls of anger – note the Eyebrow Plucker’s rock lyric reference. I let out my best lead singer, Curt Roadscraper, rebel roar and charged like a crazed gazelle right toward them.”
“I think Curt Roadscraper was more into diaper rash and wheeled walkers then rebel roars in this story’s timeframe. So anyway, you tackle him, punch his face in and give him an atomic wedgie?”
“No, Son. He could kill me with his little finger while smoking a cigarette and reading the complete works of Shakespeare. If he could read, that is.”
“So, what did you do?”
“That’s the point of the whole story. I threw the bottle of Mountain Dew as high up in the air as I could. As they both lunged out to catch it, I coolly slid into the Vega like James Bond on steroids and peeled out leaving them standing in a puddle of broken glass and sticky pus green carbonated fluid. So the moral is…”
“Wait, let me try this one. Ahem. Cue the music. Do do the Dewey dude with the Dew before the Dewey dude do do the deed to you?”
“Geesh. Once again this proves you are my biological, not adopted, son. The acorn falling near the tree thing and all that. While that is very clever and makes little to no sense, the actual moral is to always think before you swing. Since this is such a great tale, I am also throwing in a bonus moral at no extra charge.”
“Wow, thanks Dad. I can’t wait to hear it.”
“So, listen up. Here goes. Unless you are sure she is the one, there is always another drop dead dynamite babe waiting for you just around the next corner.”
Some pretty sage advice from the old man. Maybe that partially explains why I‘m not married today.
Dad wasn’t always one hundred percent right about everything.
“Mick, don’t waste your money on those new CD music things. They will never replace good old vinyl records or cassettes. You can’t even record music on them. So how would I ever make a great mix tape to seduce that lovely lady we live with?”
I hate it when Dad says things like that about his and Mom’s love life. I prefer to think I was the product of a very quiet immaculate
conception. I’m sure Dad knows this but that just eggs him on. I usually refuse to give him the satisfaction of a disgusted reaction.
“I don’t know, Dad. The sound on those CD’s is pretty darn good and they don’t get jammed up in the stereo.”
“Songs you don’t want to hear can sound fantastic, but you still don’t want to hear them. And, if you spend a little effort and keep your heads clean, cassettes won’t jam up very often. There is nothing wrong with a little old fashioned preventative maintenance.”
“Ok, Pops. Time will tell.”
Dad was absolutely right when he taught me about hard work, honesty, honor and the rewards life brings to those that color mostly within the lines. As usual for Dad’s teachings, he demonstrated this in his own convoluted, but highly effective, manner. These lessons were delivered mostly through the game of golf.
The first time he took me out was my eighth birthday. He had taken Jay out for his first links adventure at the very same age. If only he had taken us out at four or so, we might not suck so bad at the game today. But that’s beside the point. So, anyway, we get to the first tee and Dad pulls out what he calls his muscle mallet. It was an old wood headed Wilson driver that had more nicks and grass stains then actually ball hitting hickory. He took what seemed to be a dozen practice swings, lined up with the ball, waggled the club a trillion times, then stepped back off the ball and went through it all again. The first lesson I learned that day was to never play golf with Dad unless the course is empty and you have about seven hours to kill. He finally took a slow backswing and then dove at the ball like a kamikaze pilot over a slow moving aircraft carrier. The ball flew high and far and right and higher and then even further right. After it cleared the tall pines lining the fairway, we heard a loud thunk and what sounded like glass breaking.
Dad hung his head for just a second. He straightened up, came towards me with a glint in his eye and pulled another ball out of his bag. He strode to the tee, plopped the ball on the ground and, with no hesitation, hit it in a blur. It flew straight down the middle of the fairway about two twenty-five.
“Ok, Son, here’s the deal:
While planning and preparation are important, it’s easy to practice and think too much. Sometimes shutting down that quivering jelly between your ears and relying on your instincts will carry the day. I know that, but can’t seem to follow my own advice until I have already messed up.
A real man never ever cheats. The second shot I hit from the tee will show up as my third shot on the scorecard according to the rules of golf. Some golfers would call that first shot a practice shot, or a mulligan. Well, life does not recognize a mulligan and neither do I. When you cheat at golf, you only cheat yourself. And for many people, that’s taking advantage of an idiot. Where’s the challenge and fun in that?
Conventional wisdom may state that the number one rule in golf is ‘Never put your name on your golf ball.’ Well, that’s the weenies’ way out. I put my initials on each one of my balls. Everyone living on Fairview Fairways knows who they belong to and doesn’t hesitate to call me if they find one in their living room. A man needs to take responsibility for his mistakes.”
A few years later, Mom told me that if Dad had not been the owner of Fairview Siding and Glass, the cost of his golfing miscues might have forced us to compete with Scraps, the dog, for his kibble dinner. While he did many free window replacements, he never failed to sell a few window upgrades or some siding along with it.
When I got old enough that Dad felt he could toss a few “naughty” words my way, he shared his three “head” golf rules with me. “To play great golf, there are three things you must do with your head:
Keep your head down
Keep your head still
Keep your head out of your butt.”
Now that I think about it, that’s a pretty good lesson for life as well as golf.
Mom was a bit more mysterious. Think of a mixture of Mrs. Cleaver and Pat Benatar. Her once flaming red hair was now a smoldering strawberry blond. While she had popped out two strapping boys, she was in great shape. Jay and I would sometimes start to discuss what a killer bod she must have had at one time until we would get all creeped out thinking about our mother that way. Mom could bake the perfect apple pie, decorate a room that would make normal mothers green with envy and belt out any sixties or seventies classic rock song with the best of them. I mean she knew every word and every note. Some dudes my age thought she was still hot. A few took that line of trash talk a bit over the top and wound up with my knuckle imprints on their nose. She encouraged my brother and me to follow our dreams and march to the beat of a different (preferably rock) drummer.