The Paper Lion

Band of Courage

2005-03-22T00:04:00.000-05:00

I have a second job. I used to wear that fact like a scarlet letter, ashamed and shaken.

That was more than two years ago. Two years of bending stooped over to secret away this failing in my life. I surely felt the fingers upon me: "What's become of him?"

Today, of course, I stand upright. I look people in the eye, invite them to come see me at job No. 2. I no longer look upon having to hold a second job as some economic misdeed.

See, I once thought I was alone. But when I looked up from my oar, I saw a galley of people rowing right along with me.

You are more likely today to have a second job than not. The double dippers are all around you: the teacher, the secretary, the paramedic, your dental hygienist, perhaps even your supervisor at job No. 1.

That clerk in the department store might look tired and lethargic because she already has worked 8 hours at job No. 1 and came straight there without dinner. Who puts those groceries on the shelves while you sleep? Guys who caught three hours sleep before coming in to job No. 2. Who makes sure your office is clean by morning? The same man who perhaps already spent a day on the road filling vending machines.

What are our stories? They are many. Some do it so their spouse can stay at home with small children. Some do it to earn extra pocket money. Some do it to get a child through school. Some have family medical expenses. Some have been laid off from a job that now requires two incomes to match. Some, like I, do it to make ends meet, and even then the meeting is more like a distant nod than handshake.

I love my second job, perhaps because it is so different from my career. Job No. 1 is shirt and tie/sit behind a desk at a computer. Job No. 2 is hard, physical labor at a Home Depot garden center. It involves driving powerful lift equipment and knowing about grass and weeds, plants and patio stones. I supervise no one. I help people and given them advice. It is great stress relief.

But don't be fooled. We two-jobbers sacrifice a great deal. One two-jobber I recently talked to reminisced about her recent weekend in a mountain cabin by herself doing nothing other than reading books. It had been her first weekend off in 11 years of, frequently, seven-day weeks.

I am reminded every day of what I sacrifice. No. 3 has a daily routine of asking me if I am going to "Depot" that night. And usually she says, "You don't have to go to Depot any more?" I tell myself it is just a 3-year-old's game that she plays, but I am not so sure.

I have also sacrificed the ability to relax. I can no longer sit down on the sofa and watch TV or read a book without also doing something else, like laundry. I used to be a great enjoyer of leisurely walks, working out in the gym, reading for long stretches. I am capable now of none of that. If I am not working a job, I feel I must be productive and do chores that too often get neglected.

And of course, I sacrifice time with my family. I will never get that back in life. I know that. But we all make choices in life and live with the consequences of our actions. I wish it were not so, but we must accept that which we draw.

We two-jobbers aren't looking for sympathy, and for God's sake certainly not pity. I'm not even really sure we seek anything, other than to stand straight and let you know who we are.

Recently, Home Depot gave each of its associates one of those popular colored rubber bands with an inspirational slogan. Ours is orange and says simply "Improve everything we touch." I wear it proudly. It is my band of courage.

No. 3 rocks!

2005-03-14T09:58:00.000-05:00

I have been playing Green Day's "American Idiot" much too much in the car. No. 3 the other day was singing along: "Are We We Are the Waiting." She, like I, has trouble hitting that high note.

How Keane!

2005-03-04T11:52:00.000-05:00

Was dressing for work this morning in the bedroom, watching VH1 when No. 3 comes in to check out the scene. She looks up at the TV playing Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know," and says: "Hey, that's mommy's song."

Turns out No. 1 likes that song immensely and plays it intensely in the car, so No. 3 has really absorbed it. No. 3 thus stands in front of the TV and sings along to the video.

I laughed at first, but then seeing how intently she followed along, I began to realize I had created yet one more music video junkie. Please do not report me.

Facial features

2005-02-22T10:32:00.000-05:00

To sport a beard is to never be completely confident that your face is entirely free of food, especially after having eaten a peanut-butter bagel.

Drool or cool

2005-02-15T12:21:00.000-05:00

Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post weighs in on the blogging that undid CNN news exec Eason Jordan and the greater weight of the blogger nation at large.

A Legend in his own time

2005-02-14T11:28:00.000-05:00

Got introduced briefly today on TV to John Legend and his debut cd "Get Lifted." A few words and info about it are here.

I saw his new video for the song Ordinary People, directed by Kanye West. It's as true a song about marriage as one might ever find -- or want to hear. The video, directed by Kanye West, interlaces images of Legend playing piano with that of extremely passionate, hate-filled fights between couples, including one in which the husband and wife play tug-of-war with their young child. Not the kind of thing you're expecting to see on VH1 first thing in the morning, but it's transfixing. Check it out.

Brilliant!

2005-02-11T13:11:00.000-05:00

I love digital cable. Don't really like the extra $ it has added to the cable bill, but what gems for the price.

No. 1 and I have taken to watching European soccer on Fox Sports World. Where else can you hear a game announcer use the word "phlegmatic" to describe a coach? Certainly not on this side of the pond. I find myself shouting at the players now. I like that Wayne Rooney guy on M. United. Seems like a real throwback athlete: let's play our guts out and then go to the pub until we puke the rest of our guts out. And the Guinness ads? "Brilliant!"

No. 3 has even taken to watching the games with mommy when I'm not around. Yesterday morning, as I readied 3 for school, I asked what she did the night before. "We watched football," she said matter-of-factly. Now, someday I'll need to square "football" as she knows it with "football" as I grew up knowing it, but I'll worry about that down the line.

Another digital diamond: VH1 classic. If you grew up on videos, this is for you. Lots of videos, few commercials and the occasional VJ. Holy cow, it's 1982 all over again. And the content? The programmers seem enamored with playing all the off-the-wall crap that streamed into VHS along with the cool stuff. The other day, I saw Ted Nugent doing "Cat Scratch Fever." Today, it was Haircut 100's "Love Plus One." Like I said, you take the good with the bad. Now, if only I could find them playing Flash in the Pan.

Where's the time?

2005-02-11T13:10:00.000-05:00

Just read where the blogosphere has uncovered a supposed Bush White House plant in the reporter corps. Where do all these bloggers have the time to delve into this? Perhaps next they need to share time management skills with the rest of us.

Darkness on the edge of town

2004-12-08T23:12:00.000-05:00

She was dead by the time I pulled up. She lay in the street, partially in the turn lane, partially in the travel lane. I wouldn't have even seen her were it not for the other car stopped, its flashers blinking, a loan woman crouching over the body.

I'm not very good with deer, so I couldn't begin to figure her age. It wasn't hard to know she was dead: the stillness of her chest, the unblinking eyes. There was no obvious trauma, no blood, no missing appendages. She looked quite intact, but it was dark and there were no streetlights.

The other woman went to her trunk and got an old sheet. Together, we wrapped the dead deer the best we could and slid her across the street. She was heavy. Her hooves were blunted, as though she'd spent a good deal of time walking on cement. As if to at least derive some personal connection, we turned the deer over to determine its sex. It was oddly affirming to know something about this animal that had been hit and left in the street.

We laid her body on a finely cut lawn, near the sidewalk with trimmed edges. The property belonged to one of those Stepford apartments that populate the planet. To see it is to know not whether you are in Greensboro or suburban Philadelphia.

This was not out in the country; this was half a block from a major five-lane road and three shopping centers. But it was just close enough to the edge of town that nature still likes to think it has free reign.

I think we forget that, as we make our way every day from subdivisions and streets with bucolic names like Arbor Way and Deer Run, these names once held distinction to the area. Trees were here, before the land was clear-cut for homes and resown with brittle Bradford pears. Deer Run once was a noun; now it's a life-saving command.

I don't wish to hold back progress; growth is not the enemy. It's just the callous nature we bring to our environment. We don't think about co-existence. We see neighborhoods, not hiding places for wayward deer. We set traps when we see nibbled vegetation. It's not the SUV; it's the driver of the SUV that hit that deer, maybe -- maybe -- got out to look at their truck, and then got back in and drove off. To hell with nature, I'm late for the movie. Or, to quote Lou Reed, "Stick a fork in their ass and turn 'em over. They're done."

We left that deer by the side of the road, wrapped in a sheet that stretched across those open eyes. I drive by that spot most every day and look at it. I don't know what I expect to see. Maybe it'd be nice to see some weeds creeping into that cut lawn.

Daddy in a Mommy's World

2004-09-28T23:35:00.000-04:00

I came home this evening, and like every evening I emptied my pants pockets. Along with 17 cents, my Swiss Army pocket knife, Chapstick and wallet, I also pulled out one hair barrette and a hair scrunchy. They belong to No. 3.

Just so you have context here, I actually had to go look up the correct spelling of "barrette" on dictionary.com. I know what things are and their purpose, but product intimacy -- and spelling -- remains elusive.

The pocket contents before me, it clearly dawned on me that I am a daddy in a mommy's world. I do not rue this, regret it, fret about it nor seek to amend it. It simply is a role I never envisioned for myself.

Since No. 1 has to leave early every morning for a 30-mile commute, I am the one who plays breakfast maker, lunch preparer, potty supervisor, wardrobe master and ground transportation for No. 3. When No. 3 has dance class Monday afternoons at the Greensboro Cultural Center, I pick her up, dress her in all her pinkness and sit in the hallway with all the other mommies and endure the mindless yammering that makes me actually yearn to play the microscopic games on my cell phone.

I enjoy these opportunities to be with No. 3 and am fortunate to have her near me and work for an employer so understanding of family time. And yet I sense from the other mommies that I am a foreign body, an interloper, gate crasher. I do not freely discuss lactation issues (I am not making that up for effect) nor do I come toting kiddie stuff in a Vera Bradley bag. And dads, you should hear how your wives talk about you.

But there are enclaves of a more welcoming environment. The mommies at No. 3's preschool are all quite friendly. Not a Vera Bradley bag among them.

And perhaps I rather enjoy the role of odd man out, both literally and figuratively. I know that when I have to be neckdeep in mommies, I'm always greeted with a warm hug and smile by the only girl in the bunch who counts.

The Bearded Truth

2004-09-13T09:39:00.000-04:00

I grew a beard my freshman year of college. I was 18. It grew in full and bushy. I didn't much care for it, but when you're away from home for the first time gulping from the chalice of freedom, you'll do most anything you can get away with.

But as is so often the case, time wisens us all, and it wasn't long before I decided the beard neither looked nor felt good. Off it came. Off it stayed for the next 20 years.

But over the Labor Day weekend, I let myself go and went natural for three days. No. 1, sitting beside me in the canopy yard swing, dared me I wouldn't grow it for a month. Huh? She hates facial hair. Silly woman. While I cotton to the smooth, I'm no fan of shaving. This bet, I said, shall be easy. We shook. I figured she'd cave and beg me to shave before I ever saw the middle of September.

It's 11 days and counting now. No. 1 accuses me of looking like a Palestinian, her way of getting me to bend. And I admit, I was close to caving and shaving. But I remain bearded for now. I'm on to her craftiness.

Second responders

2004-09-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

I recently blogged of the quick action of this fair city's first responders during a recent traffic accident. Seems they're not alone in being fast. The second responders -- attorneys and chiropractors -- were not far behind.

The accident happened on a Tuesday. By Thursday afternoon, the mailbox delicately hand-painted by No. 1 was crammed with 10 solicitations screaming out that I was being jobbed, or about to be.

Not being much of a veteran at traffic accidents or speeding tickets, I was taken aback at the alacrity and perseverance. A couple of firms went so far as to send me a complete copy of my accident report with supplemental information to help me read the thing. Were I to hire a firm, I'd give them bonus points for saving me the trip to the PD.

In truth, I felt a bit sheepish about the newfound care and attention. Frankly, the other driver's insurance agent had jumped on the ball and, a day later, graced the hand-painted mailbox with a decent check. Haven't had any estimates done yet, so I don't know if in fact I am being jobbed. Looks like I'll have many friends to choose from should the need arise.

Renewing my luck

2004-09-02T09:14:00.000-04:00

For the first two years we had No. 3, we were fortunate to not need day care. No. 1 was in grad school and we could work our schedules to accommodate each other.

But when No. 1 graduated and started teaching, we became entangled in the great American parent's worry of finding the appropriate "pre-school" environment.

I do not worry that the right pre-school beget the right grade school to beget the right prep school to beget the right college. I wanted a place where No. 3 would be safe, learn, have fun and not have something to throw back in my face 25 years from now.

Serendipity led the way to the doorstep of the Greensboro YWCA.

The YW is an afterthought to many in this city. Its facility is older and unconnected to the more high-profile YMCA branches. Its also rather hidden, tucked between the public library, cultural arts center, parking garage and historical museum. Note to YWCA board members: if you DO build a new branch, see if the local foundations will give you that land at the corner of Church and Friendly.

By accident, I learned the YW was transitioning its "park-a-tot" program to a fulltime pre-school. Hmmmm. Gym and pool across the lobby, library and museum across the street, friendly and competent folks, an easy walk for dad at lunchtime. Yeh, I had to think about that long.

We're coming up on a year now, and this arrangement has exceeded the expectations No. 1 and I had. No. 3 just had her third birthday, but she's speaking more Spanish than I can follow. When we go to Mexico, she reads me the menus. OK, maybe not yet, but it won't be long. No. 3 knows her days of the week, months, can count to 30. The days are enriching, entertaining and educational.

No. 1 and I have spoken with other parents who have their children enrolled in what I can only politely call "corrals." For those children, Tuesday is just Tuesday. For No. 3, she knows Tuesday is gymnastics day, Wednesday is swimming day and Thursday is library day. No. 3 hugs her teachers and prattles endlessly about her friends. And the moms and dads are pleasant, unlike the mommy hell I experienced at No. 3's first dance lesson. More on that later.

If you are with child or with daycare dilemma, don't overlook the YW (they don't like being called the "Y.") It is one of Greensboro's hidden gems.

Bam!

2004-08-31T22:54:00.000-04:00

There's nothing like getting in a good ol' fashioned car accident to make you appreciate the quality of emergency services here in Greensboro.

I was on my way back in to the office after a midmorning errand today. I was on Battleground, just past the Benjamin Parkway merge near the railroad tracks, headed toward town. I had just come this way earlier in the morning, running the gauntlet of rush-hour traffic successfully. In fact, I was noting that very fact when I felt a push, heard a bang and said, "Who the hell is hitting me?"

I saw nothing. It happened to my left side blind spot. All I felt was my Ford Explorer getting pushed and a wooden light pole quickly approaching mywindshield. I steered hard away and felt the other car push off me. I heard a loud bang behind as I came to a rest in the street. Looking behind, I saw a white car had smashed head-on into a concrete guard rail.

I drove up to Prescott and pulled over to get my truck off the road. I jumped out, had a quick look and was amazed I was not damaged that badly. I ran back down Battleground, fishing for my cell phone. The white car was smoking badly and I saw a guy running at it with a fire extinguisher.

I called 911. An undercover police officer, just passing by, blocked the accident scene from traffic. Within two minutes easy, I could hear Engine 5 coming. A city police car, was in front of it. That, my friends, is response time.

Bottom line: everyone's ok. The woman who hit me with her Toyota Corolla apparently was trying to change lanes and didn't see me. EMS took her to the hospital, but I found out later she was treated and released. Her Corolla will not have the same prognosis. My truck, though banged up, should be OK after repairs.

We are fortunate in this city to have a first-rate fire department: professional, experienced, friendly and caring. I've seen these guys in a number of situations and always been impressed.
And the officer who investigated the accident had me out of there and back to work within an hour. She was a real pro, which she attributed to having done it so often.

It's not often you find yourself needing emergency help in this city, but you're in darn good hands when you need it.

The warm shoulder

2004-08-30T09:33:00.000-04:00

It's birthday No. 3 for No. 3 today. We partied yesterday under the shelter at Country Park near the playground and pond. Great setting once you complete the standoff with the Canada Geese who hit up everyone in the park. Honestly, if these birds could carry squeegees, there'd be no peace at intersections in this city.

We went native this year and got a whole pork shoulder cooked and chopped by the good folks at Frosty's up on north Summit Avenue. It's a hole-in-the-wall place (no web site to link to, and I don't anticipate them getting one soon) but their 'cue is awesome.

No. 3 spent about eight months preparing for the day. And how did she celebrate? Fell asleep in Grandma's arms about halfway through. But she woke up in time cake and presents, so that's the important thing. And hey, more barbecue for us. We recommend Frosty's if you ever need to feed a small army.

A note from Gimli

2004-08-27T12:51:00.000-04:00

Watched "The Return of the King" with No. 1 and No. 3 again last night. Honestly, I never would have taken either of them for a Tolkkienite when I innocently introduced this to the household earlier in the summer.

No. 1 ran through all four books over the summer like Sting through an Orc (if you're a follower, then you follow). My progress is much slower. I'm only in Book 2, although I have multiple viewings of all three movies under my belt. No. 3 loves playing with a Smeagol doll/action figure. I will get very worried if I come home and No. 1 has made Lamas bread for dinner.

My favorite line in the whole thing comes from "Gimli," who also happens to be the character No.'s 1 and 3 dispensed to me. No. 1, as you might guess, assigned herself "Aragorn." No. 3 chose Legolas. Only follows, I guess, that I be the bumbling comic relief role.

Anyway, Gimli toward the end of "TROTK" assesses the odds of a last ditch mission to help Frodo this way: "Certainty of death, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?"

What better philosophy for just about everything in life, eh?

Who does No. 2 work for?

2004-08-27T09:48:00.000-04:00

In my house, my wife is No. 1. I am No. 2, and have no illusions of ever rising to the top spot. I am not Avis, no matter how many floors I scrub or feet I rub.

Our daughter, Loreleigh is No. 3. Some days, she believes herself to be No. 1, but No. 1 usually has a quick rejoinder to set things straight.

Nonetheless, from her lower rung, No. 3 rules the heart, if not the house. Dad, the original No. 2, passed on this wonderful essay by Garrison Keillor that puts into perspective a dad and his young daughter. As the co-originator of four boys, he does not fully understand this perspective. But he observes me with my daughter and can see it very clearly.

A what?

2004-08-27T09:20:00.000-04:00

Sent an email to the extended family yesterday letting them know they could keep up/in touch through this medium. So far, had a few ponderances asking what a blog is. I think Dad, at 76, might be the hippest to the whole thing. But then, maybe I'm not so mainstream yet.

The family is all from out of town or else I would direct them to attend the Saturday morning conference on blogging a couple of the more established bloggers have set up. Ed, David: I'd like to come, but I've got a second weekend job at a BBR (big box retailer). Sorry I can't make it. I think more than a few N&R folks will represent.

I'm Live

2004-08-26T07:03:00.000-04:00

It's official: blogging is mainstream. That can only explain why I have created this web log.

I am caught up in the movement. It's interesting. It's full of potential. It's a way to kill time at work.

This blog will be about:
1. life in Greensboro, NC
2. the family
3. my day job