eleventh

It was really warm for that time of the year. I definitely recall that. But, other than the Indian like summer, the rest was all ordinary. I love concocting sweeping landscapes filled with all sorts of lushness and endless amounts of detailed descriptions. But, when it comes to my own personal reality, I suffer from the same poor memory as most middle aged folks. I wish I could go back ten, fifteen or even twenty years and tell you what color shirt I was wearing when my father took me to my first big league ball game. I would love nothing more that to be able to close my eyes and with total clarity describe each and every specific detail of the last time I saw my father alive, or either of my grandmothers for that matter. But, I can't. Few of us really can. Oh, some fill in the blanks here and there. There's an awful lot of embellishing that tends to happen. Im not really sure why, but i suppose we all want to hang on to certain memories so very much that, where blanks appear...we just fill them in? Eventually, the line between the real and the filled in parts is so blurred that even you, or whoever, cant' tell them apart anymore. We've all heard of the trophy bass that got away, or the time your buddy outran the police doing something like "a humdred and twenty F'ing miles per hour!", and who amongst us doesnt have an athletic endeavor or two that has been....shall we say, refined? Some memories, however, aren't so pleasant and as much as we would love to forget all about them, or to lessen their realism, their rawness, they just sit there. Sit in the recesses of your mind, just waiting for the next opportunity to rear themselves and scare the living hell out of you. It is these memories, these times that dont call for any embellsihing. So, when i say it was hot....I'm not telling a fable, or beginning the next great American novel, i'm telling you that it was unseasonably warm for Semptember, but the sun was shining, the sky was as blue as the waters from any number of the oceans we all daydream about, and I was preparing for another mundane and all too routine-y day of work.

It must have been 7 something in the morning and I hadnt been up for more than a few minutes when i was informed by my wife that a plane had hit the world trade center. "Good Morning America" was on in the background and I remember stumbling over to gain a better vantage point, because in the scope of boring and mundane, a plane of any kind hitting the world trade center just didnt fit. And, I remember thinking that exact thought....In this day and age of air traffic and technology and all that crap, how in God's green earth did a small plane hit the damn tower? Those were the early reports, that it was a small plane and the speculation was that maybe it was a student pilot and his or her instructor and something had obviously gone tragically awry. My oldest son was preparing for what I assume was a boring and mundane day of kindergarten. My twins, not yet two years old slept through what was to become the most horrific day in the history of our country, at least in any of our lifetime. It was time to hop to it, as my grindstone was awaiting, so it wasnt' too hard to tear away from the television and get into the shower. I was in the shower when the second plane hit. I got out of the shower, and life had changed forever. Of course, I still at this point, wet and drying myself off frantically in order to get back to the TV, didnt' grasp the enormity of the situation. But, I think i speak for just about every single American who was alive that day, we all knew almost instantly that you could toss out any idea of an accident. The images on the screen in my quaint and eerily quiet living room were like something out of a movie. It was intoxicating, but not in a good way. Not in the way that is all friday night at the local bar with your buddies and you're laughing and carrying on and the beer and the stories are flowing and everyone is smiling and forgetting all worries and stresses, at least for one night. No, it was more like the next morning when all the worries and stresses you tried to drink away the night before come home to roost and you pry your head off the pillow like a piece of just chewed gum from off your shoe after stepping on some overheated and skillet like asphalt. I couldn't tear myself away. Each minute brought new images, some new witness, some new piece of information, most of which turned out to be pure garbage. And, then came the rumors. All of a sudden, there were threats of terror from sea to shining sea. Somehow, amidst all this newness, this sense of  "what is going on here", I had to get to the mall. My son had to get to kindergarten, and life would surely get in the way of this far off terror. So, I left. That was one surreal drive to Richmond Heights, Mo. The whole "work" experience was just that...surreal. I got to the Galleria and, while it was early, it still had the feel of a funeral. And, a sparsely attended one, at that. There were no mall walkers. There were no "rise of the gate" shoppers. There weren't even any early birds with merchandise returns in hand, and they are the most diligent and undeterred of the retail public. I remember thinking, even upon walking in, that normalcy would still prevail at some point. But, the sands were now pouring out of that hourglass. After checking into my store and turning all the lights on, I had to find a TV. I believe it was Athlete's Foot? I can't recall each detail, but there was a store on the lower level that had a television going and there were a small gathering of us retail warriors hovering around it, taking in the horror being broadcast to the world. Surreal. By this point, we all realized that this was no ordinary day. We had woke up on a glorious and just another September morning. By the time the mall was set to open its warm and kind of greedy arms to the greater metro citizens, we were actors...bit actors in the darkest day any of has ever heard of, let alone been privy to.
Some way, some how...we opened the store. There was no music. No amped up and over aggressive sales people. More of the funeral procession. I believe we actually sold a few items? I cant' for the life of me think of why we did. I cant imagine being a consumer in that situation, on that day and wandering to the mall and thinking that I just had to have a new hat, or a pair of shiny new sneakers. Maybe we sold crap to the oblivious or clueless. Perhaps, just perhaps there were still souls out there who had escaped all of the coverage, all of the in your face media regurgitation that was in full swing. As far as us employees, it was back to that surreal word. These were uncharted waters. This wasnt a case of checking the snowfall and deciding when to pull the plug in the name of safety. This was maybe the most idyllic weather that we ever get in St.Louis in September? No, this was a national thing, a farther reaching story, one that affected every single living and breathing human in the country. Think about that. What else has ever, or will ever lay claim to a statement like that? I would love to tell you that by this point in the proceedings, on the cusp of the mall being closed for the day, much as every other mall and most commercial businesses around the country were, that I was filled with a sense of patriotism. Or that I was screaming with all of the breath in my lungs that it was time for revenge, time for some good old fashioned eye for an eye. No, I was scared out of my mind. Inside I was trembling. My boss at the time, and I'll never forget her but I won't name her here, called to converse about the craziness, as well as the logistics involved with closing the mall, and the store on this most surreal and odd of days. And, out of nowhere, I just broke down. I'll never forget asking her...."why is this happening?" Neither of us answered. And right then, I had an overwhelming desire to hold my kids. I"ll be we all did. As much as this post was going to go in a few different directions, and perhaps in the near future, I'll open those wounds, pull off those band-aids....it just kind of morphed into a sense of rememberance. I'll always remember. I'll also always remember that national feeling of pride and patriotism that was so strong, so solidified, in those first days. Do you still feel that way?

A really lousy fisherman

I'm going to spoil the ending of this post right off the bat. It is going to have so very little to do with fishing and/or the whole genre of angling. Which, on some levels is kind of sad. My father was one of the biggest fisherman that I ever knew. And, I'm sure that given the right set of circumstances and some subtle prodding, I can and will expound on the man and his love for the water and the eternal search for the "next big one". Even now, so so many years later, it brings a smile to my face and it warms my soul to recall all the wonderful memories and recollections of my Dad doing any number of things to get ready to go and fish? You should check back, because simply typing a few lines about it has unleashed a fairly strong reaction inside me and I actually can't wait to write about my father! But, this one is about me, if I may be so vain?! And, I...much to the dismay of my father, if he were still alive, hate fishing. I mean, look at me today? I live in Minnesota, complete with the 10,000 lakes and I have only been fishing maybe one or two times. And, those were just to fulfill the fatherly duties that one must partake in if you have male children. Just because I despise it, I cant assume that my sons will as well, right? Again, getting off track. I live in what might be a top five state for angling, and I come from a man who had has his number one passion the act of procuring fish...and yet, I have zero desire to dive into the the genre of boats and lures and fishing licenses and 5 a.m departures and depth finders and the list goes on and on. I'm gonna come back to the fishing thing. Trust me on this one.

The real theme to this post is the origin and timeline of my personal affinity and love for the act of writing. Arranging a series of words and phrases into a sentence that becomes magical prose. Ordinary words, mundane in their nature, crafted with just the right touch, just the right frame or reference and something amazing begins to take shape. I first started writing sometime around the 6th grade, I think. I wish that I could visualize or recall with vivid detail the moment that I was filled with the adoration of and for the written word, but alas....I can not. I just recall writing for no real reason at all. Those early pages were rough to be kind. I filled spiral notebooks with kind of the made up day to day middle school dealings of myself and a few good friends as well as some of their good friends. Kind of the first forray into the world of network marketing? Back then, there were no obstacles. I dont' think I even knew the dreaded phrase "writer's block". I just wrote and wrote and whether or not it was bad, good, or something in between didn't matter to me one bit. Because, I thought it was great. I thought I was a big and bad writer, and because of it, I was of course better and smarter than everyone else. It wasn't a matter of vanity....it was just the way I viewed my surroundings. I would let a few read what I had wrote and I'm sure they said nice things just to be nice. A sixth grade writer? Uh....not cool, man. Van Halen, and Michael Jackson were cool. Not writing made up things about you and your classmates. These tomes of drivel still exist to this day, in my mothers basement in the "David" boxes. Once every ten years or so, I'll dig them out and stare in wonderment at what passed as writing to the 6th grade me! I'm sure Hemingway started out writing epic sorts of stuff right out of pre-school? My big claim to fame, or maybe my big dip into the pool of controversy back then was building up to the big french-kissing scene between my best friend at the time, Mike and his female love interest at the time, Stacy. Ahh....good times. Oh, then there was the first time I included and wrote the "F" word into my tale. Luckily for me, my parents weren't checking my work out. Oh, what a rebel! But, above everything, and all the kidding and good natured self depracation aside, I absolutely am in love with this period of my writing history. I've read countless books on writing and only one truth or one lesson has ever stuck with me, so as such, I've kind of adopted it, even if I have far from lived up to it. That is the idea that to be a successful writer, you have to write. You have to write when you're inspired and when you're not. You have to bang out pages when you feel on top of the world, as well as when you're a sniveling hot mess. There are no "perfect" or "ideal" times for writing, just excuses and rationales on why you don't. There are plenty of empty promises one makes to oneself. The worst word in the english language is "tomorrow". I am the king of tomorrows. But, not back then. I carried my folders with me everywhere and looked forward to any and every opportunity to record more scintillating depiction of my 6th grade Rockwellian world. Somewhere along the way, life crept in and with it came all the doubts and insecurities that mar the process. Suddenly, I became something of a perfectionist and nothing was good enough. I must have started hundreds of stories, only to have every single one of them flame out after only a few pages, or only a few paragraphs because none of them were good enough. I wanted instant quality. I wanted to sit down and pen a novel on the first draft? Even as I learned more and discovered just what the journed entailed and the sheer magnitude of it, I still sought the impossible. It became too easy to exist as a writer in my mind only, if that makes any sense? I would tell myself that I was an incredible author just waiting to happen and that very soon, magic was just going to shoot out of my fingertips and then the world would see. There would be occasional actual efforts that each ended just as quickly as they began. And with each one of them that was jettissoned, the time between such efforts grew larger. Mind you, none of these failures or shortcomings did anything to dissipate the notion in my head that I was a kick ass writer. I just knew I was. I was, and to a large extent as I sit here in full mid-life mode, am....a writer who never writes? And, thus, we are brought full circle back to the lousy fisherman angle.

I haven't always hated fishing. You just couldn't be around my father for any extended time and hate it. So, as a young teenage boy, I immersed myself in it. And, as most anyone who has known me for any facet of my life will tell you, I can definitely lean towards the obsessive with regards to "things" that I take up in lfe, or things that I latch onto. And, fishing was one of these things. I collected rods, bought lures, read fishing magazines for God's sake, and watched the television shows on fishing, and then there was the times that I got to go with my father. I even wrote about fishing. This whole thing lasted until I was in high school. While in high school, I had a good friend named John Ellmer. I havent seen him since high school. John was a huge fishing fanatic. His dad had the ranger boat, and he too read the magazines and knew all about the tech-ie stuff, and best of all....John lived on a lake. So, he literally fished every other day if he felt like it. I went fishing with John a few times on his lake. There were times we just stood on the dock or on the side of the water's edge and a few times where he paddled out an old silver John boat. I'll never forget it and I'll never forget the impact that this time had on me and my writing career or lack thereof. If I ever get the chance to have my memoirs published, I will owe the title or at least the preface to one John Ellmer. You see....as much as I loved fishing....I was terrible at it. I just didnt' catch anything, ever. Even with the family history and all the obsessive fawning and now with the good friend and his assured influence, I just never crossed the imaginary line of being good at it? How in the hell does this have anything to do with my writing? In a yearbook signing....from so far back in my life I have no business remembering it, John wrote what has always stuck with me and absolutely will be the title of my life story. He wrote....."To Dave....a cool guy who likes to fish, but never cathes any." How perfect is that? Kind of sums up my life as the writer. If John had continued to be one of my life friends, he could have signed something else..."To Dave....a guy who calls himself a writer, but never writes anything." You were the best Johnny!