Tagged: Writing
Captain’s Log Now On Kindle
I started writing the posts that make up this book April 20, 2012 after serving for eight years as an Air Force Captain and pilot. The most common response readers give is a smiling, head-shaking look of disbelief that is sometimes sprinkled with joy. What no one has said–but I’m confident all feel–is that after reading these posts, after reading this book, they know they are not alone. And that’s the truth. You are not alone. And the only way to get there is together.
From Professor Batman to A Jaw-Dropping Woman, Captain’s Log April 2012-2014 is now available for Amazon Kindle. Purchase it here for only $2.99.
She Has Become Self-Aware
Even if there was an accredited parenting class, it seems unlikely it would cover bathroom protocol for opposite gender single parents.
“Are you shutting the door, daddy?” H- asked while standing outside the bathroom, as he, in fact, shut the bathroom door most of the way no different than he had done many many times before.
“Yes I am, H-. You’re getting old enough that you shouldn’t be able to see me nor me see you when we go potty,” he answered. “I know it’s confusing because on the car trips you have to come with me. But that’s just because I can’t leave you alone.”
“Oh. Okay,” she responded.
Like an apparition floating passed the cracked door, her locked-forward head led the rest of her body to her room for who knows what reason. Then he saw her pass by once more, heading back to the living room.
“Ughh! I forgot to turn off the light,” she said, exasperated.
Passing by again, she reached up the wall to flip down the light switch.
With a fourth pass she completed her second round trip.
Then, with a giggle, little H- noticed the pattern and blurted out, “It’s like I’m guarding the door!”
He had his very own little volunteer sentry. And that would have been fine until she announced, “I have to go potty now. Will you guard the door for me?”
What It Is Like
Their bags were packed. The car was mostly loaded. H- was sound asleep as usual. It was midnight.
He finished setting his alarm and closed his laptop for the last time before the trip. Experiencing a feeling that, he thought, must be akin to what the great prophets felt so many years ago, he eagerly picked up his phone for one final text.
“I just got excited because dinner and visit might provide good blog material. 🙂 Watch what you say…lol”
Not being awake at that late hour, his mom didn’t send a reply until morning.
“Ha ha ha. I only say intelligent things,” he read, already three hours into the drive.
What with her life only two-thirds complete, her assertion still awaited final judgement. But he knew he had hit his mark.
“She’d never admit it, but she’s nervous now,” he happily thought as he drove on.
*****
H- played with Uncle Sam’s beanie babies from a time long gone as the adults finished their lazy and uninspiring dinner. Then Sam left. Then Pete put H- to bed.
His mom walked by as he quietly left the bedroom door cracked a little.
Heading the same direction as his mom, he couldn’t help but ask, “Really, Ma, what’s it like?”
She turned, “What’s what like?”
His eyes led his answer.
“What’s it like to know that,” he paused, his hand signals emphasized the next bit, “you know, that you, your genes are responsible for creating me?” he asked.
“Hmm. What’s it like?”
He nodded, smiling with great anticipation.
“I guess I’d say that I feel like I’m getting Eve’s full punishment.”
“Nice Ma. I mean, you did have two days to prepare but nice just the same.”
Trolls and Tolls
“I just realized something, H-” he announced, turning down the car stereo.
“What, daddy?”
“I just remembered that on our trip today we’re going to be passing through the toll booths again,” he said. “You know, the ones that have the trolls in them–the trolls that look like people.”
“Trolls that look like people?” she asked, her tone signalling that memories were beginning to solidify.
“Trolls collecting tolls, remember?”
“Oh yeah, I remember now,” she said.
“Do you want to practice your song now? Or do you think you’ll be ready to sing the beautiful flower song when we get to where they are?” he asked.
“I can practice now,” she answered. “And daddy?”
“What?”
“If I don’t sing a beautiful flower song,” she began earnestly, “then the trolls will chase us down and eat us.”
“That’s right, H-. I gotta pay the toll, and you gotta sing a beautiful flower song as I do. Do you think you’re up to it today?”
“Yep,” she said.
The little girl then began to sing.
Flowers are up in the sky
Flowers are up in the sky
Flowers are dying and some flowers are dying-
“Wait, H-,” he interrupted. “Why are flowers dying? I don’t think that’s going to pass the test. Dying flowers aren’t beautiful.”
“Oh,” she said, realizing he may be telling the truth.
“That’s okay, H-. Just start again.”
The little girl began again.
Flowers are up in the sky
Some flowers are unhappy and other flowers are unhappy-
“H-!” he interrupted a second time. “What is going on here? Why are you singing about flowers dying and being unhappy? The song to keep the trolls from eating us has to be a beautiful flower song. Beautiful. Do you think you can do that?”
“Yes, daddy, I can.”
And so again, H- began to sing.
Flowers, flowers are up in the sky
Some flowers are happy
And some flowers-
She cut herself off as soon as the “D” sound began. Laughing at her perfect demonstration of what pilot’s call “strength of an idea”, he suggested she wait until they were at the toll booth and just shoot from the hip then.
Luckily for our duo, on cue H- put together a beautiful number as he paid the toll to the troll.
“That’s my girl. You did good, H-, real good,” he said as they sped away from the danger.
Piano Practice
Jessica’s little legs hung off the side of the hospital bed as she sat alone with her mother. Looking directly into her mother’s eyes, Jessica used all her energy to not cry and seemed unaware that her left heel rapidly tapped against the side of the bed.
Just before her last breath, Jessica’s mom told her, “Make sure and practice for me, okay? Your dad loves that piano.”
After the funeral Nick tucked Jessica into bed and leaving the lights off, poured himself a drink.
The next morning a sloppy and slow rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” aroused him to the full force of a hangover.
“Just stop, Jessica,” he groaned.
Slowing and softening just a bit, she pretended not to hear.
“I said stop!” he roared.
Confused and unused to him yelling, she pulled her delicate hands from the keys and as he rapidly approached instinctively raised them to protect herself from the blow that never came. The sound of the piano’s keylid slamming shut opened her clenched eyes just in time to see him turn towards her. She stared right back at him. Embarrassed, ashamed, and now uncertain of what he was capable of, he hurriedly walked away. She turned back to the piano, lifted the keylid, and began to practice.
As he whirled around in disbelief, he felt an unnatural warmness come over his head. He raced to the bathroom. She heard him try to cover up his sickness with coughing. His head pounded as he walked from the flushing toilet to where she was in the living room.
“What did I tell you?” he barked.
This time as he reached for the keylid, the little girl was ready. Matching his determination but not his strength, she pushed back against it with both hands, arms locked.
“Daddy, stop!”
He let off long enough for her to remove her hands but still closed the lid.
“I don’t want to hear that piano ever again,” he said.
Her face always flushed red before the tears came and this time was no different.
“But mommy told me to practice!” she said as she lifted the lid and, again, began to practice.
The Last Bookkeeper
They didn’t quite break the mold after her. It’s more like they just put it away way, way up on the top shelf where it was easily forgotten.
She woke up in the morning because that is what you do in the morning. You wake up. These days she didn’t have to work, but she kind of liked it. What else was she going to do all day?
When asked how she would spend a fantastical lottery win, she replied with events that cost nothing–reading, gardening, sitting outside with coffee.
Gossip flew into her neat and clean office but never out of it. Despite working with money all day she never talked of it. Not even to her husband. The most she would do is close her eyes and shake her head to confirm that other’s interrogations were on the right track.
It would be a mistake to say she saw the world in black and white. But life was certainly divided by conspicuously sharp lines. The boldest of these lines brought to the front what you and I might call life’s “have to’s” but she might call her duty. From raising her brothers, to raising her family, to offering a dissenting opinion just when consensus was near, to making her bed every morning, to being on-time, to not leaving dishes in the sink, to putting the cap back on, to cleaning the house on the same day every week, to keeping the washing machine off for at least one day a week, she did these things not because she wanted to, but because if she didn’t they wouldn’t get done. It could be a very tiring existence.
And yet despite the wear and tear that always seems ready to take its toll, our bookkeeper frequently experienced a feeling which most of us do not–satisfaction.
The Bet
Men fall into one of two categories. There are those who-can-swing-a-sledge-hammer-effectively–and those who cannot. Those who-cannot-swing-a-sledge-hammer-effectively can be subdivided further into two groups: those who-cannot-swing-a-sledge-hammer-effectively because they are weak and those who-cannot-swing-a-sledge-hammer-effectively because they over-think it; whereas those who-can-swing-a-sledge-hammer-effectively remain united. Being fairly strong, Pete found himself in the category of unable-to-swing-a-sledge-hammer-effectively because of over-thinking it. Roughnecks nicknamed some variation of Thor seem to limit their thoughts about the task at hand to “object needs to be struck; strike object.” To his detriment, Pete, on the other hand, took a more studied approach. To him, the task included thoughts such as, “Is this really the only way to accomplish the task? How many people are watching? I hope they’re standing far away, because once I begin there is no telling how this will end.” And, “While I realize that I am supposed to be swinging this 12-pound piece of metal as hard as I possibly can at this other piece of metal, is it possible to unintentionally break anything? Follow-up: If so, will someone be mad at me for breaking it?”
There is another nuance of sledge-hammer use that rarely surfaces in white papers. Men like Pete have full awareness of what happens at that moment–the moment the back-swing ends and the forward-swing begins. Despite increasing his effective swinging average from .500 to .734 in seven months time, Pete couldn’t forget about the remaining .266 that was unpredictably divided between missing completely and striking the object in such a way as to cause his muscles to have to transition from “HIT THAT MOTHERFUCKER!” to “PROTECT THE MASTER!” in an instant. Lucky for his face and feet, an instant was plenty of time.
****
“Want a break?” one of them asked him.
It was night. It was always night. They were in the middle of rig move and in the process of hammering up one of the mud-line’s hammer unions. A hammer union is a particularly fiendish way of connecting two pieces of pipe–several inches in diameter themselves–which must not leak under pressure. A thick metal ring with three or four gear-type knobs protruding at even intervals, the hammer union (permanently affixed around the male end of the connection) is first twisted onto the female end’s threads by hand. Upon reaching the limitation of its human’s tool-less ability, a hammer is then lifted by a gloved hand and proceeds to strike the knobs in an effort to seamlessly seal the union.
“Na, I’m good,” he answered in the middle of his quick breather.
After a few more solid swings, the tone of the metal-on-metal contact lowered several octaves until the four men heard the deep sound of the hammer hitting the entire mud-line that signals the job is complete, rather than the high-pitched sound that informs all that more swings are necessary.
“Peter, I bet you one hundred dollars I can get one more full turn out of it,” Becki volunteered.
Breathing hard, Pete peered into Becki’s soul, saw innocence, and said, “Whatever man. There is no way. No way. That one is not moving anymore. It’s good.”
“If you think so, then bet me,” Becki rejoined.
“You bet me one hundred dollars that you can get a full turn on that union?” Pete asked, his winnings already spent.
“Yep.”
“Okay. That’s a bet,” said Pete, offering his hand.
Glee filled the other two men’s eyes as they each claimed witness to the bet and excitedly awaited the outcome. But not as much glee as filled Becki’s eyes.
“That’s the wrong way Becki,” Pete said, shaking his head that even the fastest roughneck messes up righty-tighty lefty-loosey sometimes.
“Wrong way!” yelled an onlooker to the unceasing Becki.
The twinkle in Becki’s eyes could be seen for miles. It spoke so loud that he needn’t put his voice to use until the loosening turn was completed at which point he asserted, “Like I said, one full turn. Pay up.”
A very sad Pete put up one volley in a futile argument concerning unstated betting assumptions.
At the young age of twenty-two, Becki had waited a full tenth of his life to put to use one of the oldest oil-field bets on an unsuspecting worm. Suffice it to say, Becki got more than one hundred dollars. He made a friend.
No More Breaks
“Alright guys, gather round, gather round,” he began with a slight amount of force to his voice. “Gather round. Christmas came early this year.”
The men formed a natural circle and tried their best to hide their interest with looks of confusion. Gatherings like this did not normally happen. They did see, however, that Pete had a full bag in his hands.
“Okay. I want to tell you guys something. A few days into this hitch I was laying in bed thinking about how I, like you, have to work over the big three upcoming holidays. And that sucks. I then remembered that I have some cash on hand as a result of the home selling/home buying fiasco you guys know about. Because the only reason I work these days is for money and because I have some money, I told Richard a week or so ago that this will be my last hitch. I am quitting,” Pete announced.
Short Brush chuckled, thinking it was a joke.
“I’m not kidding. And to prove I’m not kidding, I got you all something as a going away gift. I also want to take a minute to talk to you differently than I normally have. I know I’m just a floorhand here, but in my past life I was a leader and had more of an instructor/speaking role. Since I’m leaving, I figure I might as well say what’s on my mind about you guys.
“John, I got you an iTunes gift card. It’s got twenty bucks on it. What I want to say to you is that after I leave, you’ll officially be the most considerate roughneck. Keep it up. Also, I respect the zeal with which you and your fiancé live out your Christian beliefs. At the same time, you sometimes seem like you are two sermons away from strapping on a suicide vest. I’m just saying.
“Short Brush, despite the fact that I’ve told you how to get movies for free, I also got you an iTunes gift card. Enjoy. What I want to say to you is that you’re fat and lazy. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows you hide in the stairwell behind the drawworks. I don’t know who you think you’re fooling. That said, I don’t believe that you’re fat because you’re lazy, I believe you’re lazy because you’re fat. So here’s a deal I’m willing to make with you. Lose forty pounds and if by the time you’ve lost the weight plus three months you’re not a motorhand, I’ll pay the difference in your salary for a year. It’s not much, so don’t get too excited, but I’m serious. You saw how I paid Becki when I lost that bet. As you lose the weight, you’ll get more respect, and the work will become easier. There’s no reason you can know so much about fantasy football and not this job. Who knows. You might get promoted as you are. But, nothing to actually do with the weight, I’m sure you will if you lose the weight. Lose the weight.
“Chris, I’m giving your gift to you kinda backwards. Here’s some batteries. You’ll also get my flashlight and crescent and pliers before I leave. What I want to say to you is that you’re tall and not just for a Mexican. I’ve seen tall men get promoted my whole life for simply being tall. People want to follow tall men. But you work for a company which values character above all else. So take advantage of that. In the Air Force we said that Integrity First means doing the right thing when no one is looking. I’ve seen you not do the right thing occasionally. We’ve all done it. But I challenge you to do better. Recently you have been and it made me proud every time no matter my reaction in the moment. Everyone will follow a tall man with character.
“Becki, as you know it was love at first sight. I got you not one, not two, not three, not four, but five cans of snuff. They didn’t have it in a log. I’m sorry if that takes away some of the thrill of opening it. What I want to say to you is that you have to tell the women you’re sleeping with that you have an STD. If it’s not against the law not to, it’s at least unethical. I also want you to know that you have limitless potential. You can do anything you want. I mean it.
“Richard, iTunes for you too. What I want to say to you is thank you for keeping us safe. Thank you for keeping me safe. Nobody needs to get hurt on this job. You keep us safe by your professionalism and the fact that you stick to the rules. More than that, you keep all the other crews on this rig safe by having a reputation for sticking to the rules. Other drillers know you’re out here doing it right and that helps tip the scales when they are uncertain how to act. Regarding your marriage, one time while I was in Iraq my mom told me to “hold her like a butterfly.” I never did figure out what that means, but maybe you will and maybe it’ll keep you married.
“That’s it. Let’s finish out these last two days safely and go home.”
Sacred Harp (Shape Note) Singing’s Gift
If you’ve seen Cold Mountain, then you’ve been introduced to Sacred Harp singing. It’s also called Shape Note singing. Essentially, it’s this ol’ timey acapella singing where the notes are shaped like squares, circles, diamonds, and triangles and named fa, so, la, and mi. The singers sit in a square (tenor, bass, soprano, alto) facing each other. You can view a video of it here. In any case, one day I was reminded how much I liked the sound of it and used the interwebs to see if anyone in Denver actually still does it. Sho’ ’nuff, they do. So I took H- last night.
First, it was a beautiful church. But the attendance was much lower than I expected. There were eleven of us. Well, including H- there were twelve. Eleven adults, one child. But what a child. If you haven’t watched the video linked above, now is your second reminder and link.
The way the session worked was we just went around the square and chose songs. Usually a person stood up in the middle and “led” the singing. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but it is common and helps everyone stay on time.
Being sharp and displaying perfect innocence, H- was sure to spell out her first name for the group between the first and second songs and her last name between the second and third songs. And this without even being asked. Endearing is a little weak when it comes to attempting to describe the scene with words.
Next, H- noticed that a participant stood in the middle of the group and asked if she could do it. A kind old woman offered H-, “You can stand with me when I do it.” And H- did–foot tapping and all. (If you’re not in tears at this point, please dial 911). A few songs later there was a delay in anyone standing up to approach the middle of the square. H-‘s response was to fill void. She is so smart. Can you picture it? Use everything I’ve shared with you about this little girl and just imagine her responding to the group’s inquisition, “What are you doing?” with,”Someone needs to stand in the middle.” This child has no fear. Do you remember what that was like? Can you remember? I can’t remember it, but I can report that witnessing it is a gift from God.
Shape note singing. Who would’ve thought it would beget a miracle?
Dropping Off
Same car. Same smorgasbord of items in the car. Same occupants. This time, however, they are pulling into the pre-school parking lot. It’s day two of three for the week. Day one’s drop-off ended in tears. Truthfully, it ended in adults acting a-fool in an effort to distract poor H- so that the tears would stop.
Car in mid-turn, he glimpsed the future and said, “Oh, H-.”
“Yes, daddy?”
“I meant to tell you that I’d like it if you didn’t cry today,” he said. “Remember what we talked about? Instead of crying, how about we agree that you just say, ‘Daddy, I’d like one more hug’?”
“Uh, I think I might do what you said, daddy,” she said, referencing the crying.
“No, H-,” he bemoaned. “You can’t keep crying every day–even if you’re sad. You’re a big girl now-”
“I think I might do what you said, daddy,” she repeated. While strong and carrying surprising foreknowledge, her voice faltered just enough to indicate she really was getting nervous to leave his side.
The exit of the car was uneventful. They entered the room one after the other. He struck up a conversation with the teacher; H- walked towards her seat. He tried to say goodbye. She didn’t turn. He tried once more. She didn’t turn. He quickly scanned the faces of the others in the room. He was speaking out loud, wasn’t he? Then it hit him. Ignoring the pain can be easier than acknowledging it. Social grace told him it was time to exit the classroom. Now it seemed that the pre-game speech was a bit much. No, he thought, that’s not it. She must have just been distracted. Yeah, that’s it.
Captain’s Log 