Fathering and Fiddleheads

Sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by books, bookmarks, and notebooks. Enjoying the silence, except for the hum of the old freezer. Everyone but my oldest son sleeps. He's sitting out in the woods somewhere listening to a myriad of birdsong I imagine. The other day he returned from the woods with some fiddleheads. He boiled them in a pot along side a frying pan of scrambled eggs with chopped sweet-white violet leaves and flowers. I begged some fiddleheads off him. My first time ever having them. After a lot of butter, salt and pepper were added they weren't too bad. 

Yesterday, while going for a barefoot run in our yard, I noticed broken robin egg shells. Something about seeing them lifted my spirits after delivering over 400 boxes and 100 miles of mostly junk mail yesterday. Days like this I wish everybody would sit down and write a love letter sealed with a kiss, drop a postcard to a friend, write their representative about something that really pisses them off, or you fill in the blank. Anything to help people get in touch with their soul, elevate people above products, and make my job a bit more satisfying and worthwhile. 

We're headed south to Bloomer this afternoon. It'll be the 4th baseball game this week I will be attending in the capacity of fan and proud father. I will most likely see about half of it or so. The rest of the time will be spent playing catch with whatever kid wants to play catch, and there's never ever been an instance where this wasn't the case.  I pretend that it's a chore, but it's really not. The only time I can focus in on a game is in the capacity of coach or player. I like to keep moving I guess.....

Spring just keeps springing along.

To Stand Or Not Stand

A few months back The American Legion declared all baseball players and coaches participating in baseball games sanctioned by TAL must stand for the national anthem at all events. If they don't they will be banned forever from baseball games sanctioned by the association. 

I wholeheartedly disagree with this. If my son, who is a 17 year old American Legion baseball player, decided not to stand for the anthem I would support him. Also, I've coached baseball from T-ball on up to the high school level. If one of my players chose not to stand I would also support them. I, on the other hand, had thought I would choose to stand as a coach. My thinking was an individual could stand for the anthem AND work towards a more democratic and civil society. In other words, I wouldn't be standing in the name of an authoritarian patriotism. But after reading this paragraph in Doug Lummis's "Radical Democracy" I wonder if the United States flag stands for an authoritarian patriotism. 

"In a democracy, it must be remembered, patriotism means the love that binds a people together, not the misplaced love of the institutions that dominate the people. Authoritarian patriotism is a resigning of one's will, right of choice, and need to understand to the authority; it's emotional base is gratitude for having been liberated from the burden of democratic responsibility. Political virtue--democratic patriotism--is the commitment to, a knowledge of, and ability to stand for the whole, and is necessary condition for democracy." -- (Pg. 37) 

Right now, the United States flag stands for an authoritarian patriotism. We would have the right to local, community self-government if it did not stand for that, but it doesn’t. The United States government protects corporations over communities and the landbase that supports and nourishes them physically, emotionally and spiritually. Standing Rock is a case in point. A local community should be able to exercise their right as self-governing people to say "no" to pipelines and other corporate harms. That’s simply not the case at this point in time. 

I don't know If I'll be standing for the anthem this upcoming baseball season. 

Christmas, Cards, and Colon

Amidst the chaos, clamour, and confusion of the Christmas morning present opening process I spotted it sitting there looking lonely. Its intended owner was already tearing the wrapping paper off another carefully covered gift. With my presents unopened and sitting next to my recliner I resolved to keep my eye on it until the wrapping paper settled, but I couldn't resist. The boy that used to ride his dirtbike out of South Hills Trailer Court to Orv and Wally's Grocery Store too many times to count, clutching pocket change for a pack in a sweaty fist pressed against his handle grip, had to ask, "Hey Hayden (7 yrs. Old), can I open your pack of cards to see who you got?"

Half way through the pack I find myself excitingly reading and talking aloud about Bartolo Colon (He's 42, my age), then I notice nobody is paying attention. I go back to silently reading stats and stories.

Outposts in our Heads

I find myself in one-on-one face-to-face conversations about the Enbridge pipeline expansion more often lately. One comes to mind from my son's baseball game a few weeks back. I get done explaining all of the horrors to the guy about the project. There's no place for him to go rationally except to say, "I'm against it. Sign me up!"

But he finds a way around it. "I used fossil fuels to get here," he says "so what can I say?" A long silence. We exchange parting remarks, then he moves on to talk with other community members and get as far away from me as possible. I wonder if I smell funny. Maybe have a booger hanging from my nose. Show signs of lepresy.

Here's what I wish I would've said after his paralyzing proclamation of powerlessness: "Who cares if you used fossil fuels to get here. You didn't set this system up. You didn't make us totally dependent on fossil fuels. Why do you need to take responsibility for what is not yours? Just because you drive a car that gives them right to bury this thing under every major watershed in Wisconsin and Washburn County? What about the right to our health, safety, and welfare? What about our inherent and inalieble right to self-government that's been granted to us in every major governing document?"

They have outposts in our heads.

A Slice of a Trip Down to Scheels Sports

Hayden (5 yrs. old), Sophia (2 yrs. old), and I are in the men's bathroom at Scheels All Sports out of necessity and circumstance. After Sophia looks with her hands where the liquid disappears in a urinal it's time to wash them. In case she touches anything else I quickly pick her up and carry her over to the sinks, set her back down and reach up to give the soap dispenser lever a pull to successfully fill the palm of my hand with a mound of white, bubbly foam. I take what I'...ve got in my hands and put it into hers, then tell her to rub her hands together. As she's doing this I get her picked up and horizontally position her over the sinks so she can rinse her hands off. To an outside observer this could look like I'm playing airplane with my daughter. When in reality I'm worn down, frazzled, and just want to get the hell out of the store after spending well over two hours in there bowling 20 frames of miniature bowling, finding hidden children in racks of clothes from one end of the store to the other, helping reassemble a camping mess kit, chasing down what they call the "First and Best Really Bouncy balls ever created", and so on. We get her hands rinsed off and I fly her over to the electric-forced-air hand dryers, she smacks the button and starts to handle the hot air. Meanwhile I look over at the machine next to ours and there is my son positioned under the rush of hot air with his mouth wide open, lips and puffed out cheeks vibrating from the blast of air. "What in the heck are you doing, H?" I exhaustingly ask. "I'm drying my mouth out, dad!"

That's how our experience ended at Scheels in Eau Claire yesterday

The Big Impossible

A few nights back I couldn't sleep, so I got out of bed and pulled a book off from the shelf to read until I could fall back asleep. It's title: "Man Enough: Fathers, Sons and the Search for Masculinity," by Dr. Frank Pittman. I'm interested in the subject because I will be periodically working with young men between the ages of 14 and 19 through spring and well into summer on the baseball diamond. At that age I remember the question the took center stage in my mind was: What does it mean to be a man? This quote jumped off the page at me during my fit of sleeplessness.

"Masculinity is an 'artificial state, a challenge to be overcome, a prize to be won by fierce struggle.' So says David Gilmore in "Manhood in the Making," after he examined the ways in which boys become men in various cultures. Gilmore tries to define what it takes to be a man, what the puberty rituals attempt to instill in boys. He says, 'To be a man in most of the societies we have looked at, one must impregnate women, protect dependents from danger, and provision kith and kin...Manhood is a kind of male procreation; its heroic quality lies in its self-direction and discipline, its absolute self-reliance.' Gilmore tells us that the Fox tribe of Iowa considers being a real man 'The Big Impossible.' No man who sets out to achieve total masculinity can ever be man enough.

"Masculinity is supposed to be about protection of the family, but the pursuit of this Big Impossible can lead men to escape domesticity and the power of women. Men can't always do what man's gotta do to "feel like" a man and still do what a man's gotta do to "be" a man."(Pg. xiv)

I also like this quote about how terrifyingly dangerous and terrifyingly important women are to men. I remember reading somewhere that younger men look for the guidance of older men because the older men have been with women longer. They have more experience with the danger and importance of women, in other words.

"Why do men love their masculinity so much? Because men have been trained to sacrifice their lives for their masculinity, and men always know they are far less masculine than they think they should be. Women, though, have the power to give a man his maculinity or take it away, so women become both terrifyingly important and terrifyingly dangerous to men. It's all quite crazy, but this, too, is a part of the 'masculine mystique.'" (Pg. xvi)

First Day of Fishing Season

Yesterday was the opening day of fishing season in Wisconsin. The events of that day went more or less like this. Woke up and sat on cushion for half-n-hour; started fire in masonry stove to keep house warm; arrived at work and delivered mail until mid-afternoon; stopped at gas station and bought: two bags of Giants sunflower seeds ( one bacon ranch the other siracha flavored), a fishing license and trout stamp; entered a house that looked like a bomb went off from three kids being home alone for 7 hours; started van and loaded up kids; stopped at the closest culvert with trout stream running under it; 14 year old son joyfully fished while I exhaustively kept kids out of road and from falling in fast flowing water; got home and played catch with sons; grilled some burgers for dinner and ate; read book to 4 year old son in bunk bed; passed out with book and son; we both awake at 2:30 AM to take pee and get in bed with wife and daughter.

Oh how the opening day of fishing season has evolved over the years.

Walk Like an Elephant

"In one of his insightful talks Zen master Shunryu Suzuki said that in your practice you should walk like an elephant. 'If you can walk slowly, without any idea of gain, then you are already a good Zen student.' There's a mantra for your religion: Walk like an elephant. It means to move at a comfortable pace. No rushing toward a goal. No push to make it all meaningful." Thomas Moore, pg. 43, A Religion of One's Own

All I need to say about this quote is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I think that is why I love baseball so much. A few years back, an elder friend of mine once said, "your a baseball player, the game and its pace fits your character." At that time in my life I hadn't played the game for close to a decade and wasn't coaching. He'd only heard me talk about it and seen me play catch with a weak and wounded arm. I was around 25 at the time and about ten years earlier I had my arm surgically repaired because it would not stay in it's socket anytime I threw a ball. I've never had full strength in my arm since. And ever since then anytime I took the field the feeling of being weak and disabled has always accompanied me. Anyway, the comment confused me because he'd never seen me compete. Nonetheless, the comment has always stuck with me.

This also points to why one of my biggest bitches about paying the bills by means of being a part-time rural letter carrier is that the job is based on speed. You're suppose to try and be back to the office at a certain time no matter what. If an elderly customer wants to sit down with a cup of coffee and chat about their childhood or gossip about a neighbor; or you want to pull over and watch a bear stroll across a field with her cubs, the clock is always ticking, and I despise it.

This also takes me back to a comment that a Facebook friend of mine made about a year or so ago: "It's interesting to me why your work is so far away from what your values are." It's one of those comments, I think, that cuts right through to the bone and arises periodically until the space between the work and the values isn't so vast.

Time to get ready to help out a fellow carrier pedal mail so she can go to a funeral.

Our First Baseball Practice

Last night I spent the evening with 18 young men on the baseball diamond. I'm helping coach my son's 13-14 yr. old Babe Ruth team. Last night was our first practice. A few reflections and observations:

Reflections: This thought kept reoccurring during our practice: "Wow, just think you used to move and throw like that with little or no effort. Now you come to practice with ice packs and ibuprofen set to pace yourself." Ah yes, grief and diminishment. Welcome to middle-age, forty is only a few months away.

Observation: There is an underlying rage in most of those boys. They're extreme in nature. In trying to understand this I turn to Michael Ventura's "Age of Endarkenment:"

"We tend to think of this extremism in the young as rela-
tively new, peculiar to our time. The history of the race
doesn't bear this out. Robert Bly and Michael Meade,
among others, teach that tribal people everywhere
greeted the onset of puberty, especially in males, with
elaborate and excruciating initiations — a practice that
plainly wouldn't have been necessary unless their young
were as extreme as ours. But, unlike us, tribal people
met the extremism of their young (and I'm using "ex-
tremism" as a catch-all word for the intense inner caco-
phony of adolescence) with an equal but focused and
instructive extremism from the adults.

"The tribal adults didn't run from this moment in their
children as we do; they celebrated it. They would as-
sault their adolescents with, quite literally, holy terror;
rituals that had been kept secret from the young till
that moment — a secrecy kept by threat of death, so
important was this "adolescent moment" to the ancients;
rituals that focused upon the young all the light and
darkness of their tribe's collective psyche, all its sense
of mystery, all its questions and all the stories told to
both harbor and answer those questions. Their 'meth-
odology,' if you like, deserves looking at, since these
societies lasted with fair stability for at least 50,000 years.

"The crucial word here is 'focus.' The adults had some-
thing to teach: stories, skills, magic, dances, visions,
rituals. In fact, if these things were not learned well
and completely, the tribe could not survive. But the
adults did not splatter this material all over the young
from the time of their birth, as we do. They focused
and were as selective as possible in what they told and
taught, and when. They waited until their children
reached the intensity of adolescence, and then they
used that very intensity's capacity for absorption, its
hunger, its need to act out, its craving for dark things,
dark knowledge, dark acts, all the qualities we fear
most in our kids - the ancients used these very
qualities as teaching tools.

"Through what the kids craved, they were given what
they needed. Kids of that age crave extremes of ex-
perience — they crave this suddenly and utterly, and
are possessed by their craving. They can't be talked out
of it or conditioned out of it. It's in our genetic coding,
if you like, to crave extremes at that age. (So they must
certainly feel rage if, as in our culture, adults tell them
that these cravings are wrong, disruptive, and/or don't
really exist — which New Agers do as surely as Vic-
torians.) At the same time, these kids need the cosmology
and skills apt for survival in their world. The kids can
create the extremes for themselves — they're quite good
at it; but not the cosmology, not the skills. And
without those elements, given at the proper time
through the dark-energy channels that have suddenly
opened in the young and go clear down to their souls,
the need for extremes is never really satisfied in its pur-
pose, and hence it goes on and on."--Micheal Ventura out of The Age of Endarkenment

We don't give them a working cosmology. Why? We don't have one.

From Jung to Uecker

I had someone tell me the other day that I had to let the telephone sermon with the fundamentalist, firewood cutting neighbor go; that I should just let it roll off my back. I don't know if the person thought I was wounded or hurt or what. Somehow I got the feeling that they thought I needed support in this. Or perhaps that I needed protection. That's not the case at all. I'm geniunely interested in some of the things the guy had to say. Of course, when you're interested in anything there is focus, attention, emotion and values and so on. And anyone that knows me knows that I don't just let things go. I can't. It's impossible. I still brood and think on things that were said to me 25 years ago. Anyway...

During the conversation my neighbor said that he hears the prophetic voice of the lord on a daily basis. I think the guy does hear voices. And I'm not saying that in a contemptuous way. I don't think he's a nutcase. Granted I don't agree with some of the things that his voices are telling him, but I'm interested that he's hearing voices. Why? As I've mentioned before, I'm reading bits and pieces of Jung's "Red Book", and that's what the whole thing is about. It's an account of a man dealing with the voices of his internal figures. He's telling those of us in the Western tradition that we all have internal figures and voices that we hear. That's your soul. And we need to get to know and discern which figures are saying what. I think that's what good fiction writers do by the way. I've heard authors say that the characters they create actually take over their life at times.

All of that interests me.

Last night, while I was grilling burgers, I saw two blue herons fly over and heard some Canadian geese off in the distance. I'm not sure, but I think I heard sand hill cranes as I was getting into the Park Avenue to head off to work. There's still alot of standing water and snow around here. Our old horse barn finally caved in.

Oh, and Bob Uecker thinks that Justin Upton beat B.J. to the table quite a bit when they were kids.

Those are some of my thoughts and observations before I head out to cut firewood on this gray day.

One More

I had -5 F at the official sunrise this morning. It's warming up! You know that you've had bad winter when you start feeling this way.

More signs of spring are in the air. Last night, at around 8 o'clock or so, Hayden (4 yr. old) approached me wearing his spiderman suit, his left hand wearing a baseball glove holding onto an orange Ripken foam ball. We ended up tossing and rolling the ball back and forth to each other for a half-hour or so. Me on my knees in the middle of the kitchen and he standing on the pitcher's mound in the middle of our round house. He didn't catch any balls I tossed to him. He did well on grounders, though. He let me know that Cal and Billy (He's watched my Baseball Fundamentals by Ripken Baseball videos more times than I can count) taught him how to take grounders. Despite all of the missed tossed balls he doesn't give up. He'll go close to a hour and catch only a handful of balls. I'll be begging for mercy and he'll be asking me to throw "one more." Someday I'm going to have a T-shirt made that says "One More" on it. I'll wear it during baseball practices. Why? Because that is one of the most oft repeated phrases you hear when your throwing batting practice or catching pitches from Little Leaguers.

I'm afraid my son is going to one more my arm into retirement sooner then I wish. Time to load up the boys and start hauling slab wood for next winter...

Fever Setting In

As the snowflakes gently fall from the sky and the temperature drops outside these cordwood walls on this 20th day of January, my 4-year-old son stands facing me with baseball cap on head, baseball glove on left hand, ball in right hand, and a naked bottom. My 14 year old son's bat bag has made it's way from its spot in the old abandoned farm house a stone's throw away from the house we're living in now.

I'd say not cabin but baseball fever is setting in.

Boys and Baseball

Last night we drove into town for dinner and an interview that I was asked to do. A former Little League player of mine had to interview some coaches for a school project. During the interview he asked what one of my fondest memories was of coaching. I couldn't think of anything. Well, that's sort of true. I did but didn't think it proper to say it. The first memory that came to mind was from the 2011 season. I was standing on the mound throwing batting practice to the team and out of all the chaotic noise and laughter I hear a 11 year old voice from centerfield razzing my second baseman of equal age, "Billy's got a boner. Billy's got a boner. Billy's got a boner." I tuned into listen. The two of them proceeded to razz each other for a bit then let it rest. During the exchange I fought back the impulse a few times to tell them that they'd better put a lid on it. After all, there were parents around, and what kind of coach would let this go on at his practice? I persevered, though. I silenced the voices, buried the impulse, and smiled.

I don't know why it's one of my fondest memories but it is. Atleast it was the first one out of many that came to mind last night. I remember returning home after practice on that chilly spring evening and looking up this quote by Dostoyevsky:

"There are 'certain' words and conversations unhappily to eradicate in schools....Boys, pure in mind and heart, are fond of talking....of images of which even soldiers would sometimes hesitate to speak....There is no moral depravity...but there is the appearance of it, and it is often looked upon among them as something refined, subtle, daring and worthy of imitation."

My centerfielder's razzing chant and the exchange that followed was nothing close to what " even soldiers would sometimes hesitate to speak," but I knew it was a start. I'm glad I silenced the internal voices that evening. They were on their way to becoming young men.

Born To Run?

I have been running close to a mile six days a week for well over a month now. I really like doing it, which is surprising. I'm a baseball player at heart. And baseball players usually don't spend a lot of time running long distances on a daily basis. Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle come to mind. Ruth spent a lot of time drinking, smoking, chasing tail and not getting to bed on time, and he's still one of the greatest hitters of all time. Mantle, after a long night of drinking, said the next day the key was just to swing for the middle ball as it's crossed the plate. The first Milwaukee Brewer game that I ever went to as a kid I peaked around the wall of the dugout to see then all star catcher Ted Simmons smoking a cigarette.

Granted I haven't played organized baseball for close to twenty years now but I still love it. Some of my fondest memories have come from my time spent on and around a baseball diamond. This is partly the reason why I think I've kept myself in pretty good shape since I graduated high school. If need be I still could play. So over the past 20 years or so I've made sure to stretch in the form of some loose yoga poses and do sets of push-ups and sit-ups atleast 5 days a week. Currently I'm doing a variation of them everyday. But I always made sure not to run long distances because I didn't want to suffer any of the injuries that I've heard runners suffer, especially knee injuries. My mom has had a couple of knee replacements starting in her mid-forties. She weighs just over 110 pounds, so it's not because she's overweight. She's never been a runner. She has worked in retail since she's graduated high school, though. That means a lot of time spent standing on cement floors. Come to think of it, both my parents have been making their living standing on cement floors for close to 40 years now. My dad spent 30 years in a metal fabricating factory near where I was born and raised, then retired so he could move up to northwest Wisconsin by his kids to spend more time standing on cement floors in the sporting goods department at Wal-Mart. He's had his share of foot problems. So I've tried to stay away from cement floors and long distance running.

To top it all off I started reading Christopher McDougall's "Born To Run." I'm 15 pages into it and he's already layed out the common injuries that runners suffer and how often. The number that has stuck with me is 8 out of 10 runners will suffer some type of injury during their time at it. Now I'm really ready stop running, but before doing so I had take off my shoes and try running a mile barefooted. I know of a friend that started running barefooted after he read it. If I remember right he said that his doctor told him he'd never be able to run again. The last I checked in with him, he was running close to three miles every other day and getting stronger. So maybe I will continue on with the book and try some barefooted running before the snow flies here in northwestern Wisconsin.

On a different note. I stopped by a neighbors yesterday to pick up her garbage. She's done some activist work in the past and follows Wisconsin politics much closer than I do. She made sure to let me know that they (I forgot the name of the company) are now pumping water out of the ground near the Penokee Hills and shipping it over to China. She also made sure to let me know that the Walker administration was fascist. She even wanted to take the time to show me a list of reasons that was put together by a fellow citizen as to why this is so. I told her not to worry about it. I said to her, "I pretty much figure any government body that values products over people's needs is well on its way to fascism. And this is why I don't think Derrick Jensen is too radical of a writer."

Play or Pay

The other day the library sent me Phil Jackson's new book Eleven Rings. Outside of coaching two baseball teams, practicing with my sons, and taking care of life's other priorities I've had the opportunity to read twenty pages or so out of ER. This morning I was taken by this quote by Lao Tzu:

The best athlete
wants his opponent at his best.
The best general
enters the mind of his enemy...
All of them embody
the virtue of non-competition.
Not that they don't love to compete,
but they do it in the spirit of play.

This is probably one of the biggest challenges I have noticed when I'm coaching, especially in tight games. The spirit of play (I don't know if play necessarily needs to be light) turns into a must-win situation. I don't think this is a bad thing. It's just an observation, I guess.

There is something deeper that I got from the Lao Tzu quote, though. As a culture we don't keep that spirit of play in mind when we engage The Community of Life. We annihilate our competitors in the biological community. If they're competing with our food and our food's food we are at war with them. And we're going to go extinct if we don't stop this.

Uecker is Authenticity

"His head didn't bobble on that one!" Said Bob Uecker after Norichika Aoki's second hit of four hits on Norichika Aoki bobble head day at Miller Park. That, to me, ranks right up there with him saying the proper place for a Jason Kendall bobble head would be a hood ornament on a demolition derby car.

I don't think there is a Brewer game that has gone by where I haven't asked where does he come up with this stuff?

It's Opening Day!

It's Opening Day! Looking forward to hearing the voice of Bob Uecker through the car speakers as I pedal mail on this first day of April.

“[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.” ~ A. Bartlett Giamatti

Practice

"It's very important to distinguish between a practice and a task. You can succeed or fail at a task. This is a practice, you can’t fail at it, you just keep doing it. That's why we call it practice. It’s not about success and failure." ~ Ken McLeod

This resonates given my relationship with Buddhism and baseball.

Watch Ripken Hitting Daddy

The first thing my son (He's 2 1/2 yrs. old) said to me this morning was, "watch Ripken hitting." I'm guessing he's watched this video close to a 100 times already. It's almost a daily occurance. I've got three videos put out by the Ripkens. One on hitting and the other two are on pitching and defense. He only watches the hitting video.

He shouldn't need much hitting instruction in years to come.

Hayhurst on Hitters and Pitchers

Well, it's been a couple of days since I have posted. I'm giving up on my goal of posting once a day. With how busy my life has gotten with Little League baseball, postal work, and the responsibilites that come with being a dad I don't have much time to post. I usually post early in the morning, but like I said in a previous post I would rather leave the computer off and use that time to write long hand or read a book. I should be able to post every couple of days, though.

I spent the past couple of mornings reading Dirk Hayhurst's Out Of My League. I ran across this quote this morning. But before I post the quote here is what I just noticed Bob Costas had to say about the book: "Dirk Hayhurst writes about baseball in a unique way. Observant, insightful, human, and hilarious." I'd agree. I've really enjoyed the book so far.

"Hitters are stupid. If they weren't, they'd be pitchers. No one in their right mind would pick the side of the game that considers three out of ten good unless they're slightly unhinged."[Pg. 47, Out Of My League]