Addressing Issues

Sometimes life is "two steps forward and one step back." Lately it seems I’ve been back stepping.

I shared in a 12-Step meeting recently about having lost my temper and turning on someone in an angry outburst of words. I was ugly and meant to be hurtful. Within minutes I had apologized, but by then the damage was done. It is true that words cannot break bones, but neither can they be taken back.

After I spoke several other members shared on the topic of "acceptance". They assured me that I am not alone in displaying old, bad behaviors. They too have spoken angry words rooted in resentment and fear, even while living in recovery. They reminded me that the illness which brought me into our fellowship is one I will live with forever; that my disappointing behavior is the result of faulty thinking rooted in my disease.

My role then is to admit when I am wrong and to apologize. Then, to continue practicing the principles of our program in all my affairs. The lesson for me in this is that I am not perfect. I will continue to disappoint others and myself for I am only human. When I act wrongly it is important that my next action be to do the right thing.

My angry outburst demonstrated to me that I have outside issues which need to be addressed. I have learned in this 12-Step program that it is appropriatde to seek outside help for outside issues. So, I have made an appointment to speak with a professional about some things that I believe are contributing to unacknowledged resentment and fear within me.

Only a few years ago I would be self-righteously defending my bad actions and dismissing any suggestion that my behavior needed to change. But, it seems that I am changing. That, I think, is progress.

Single-handed Submarine

I was visiting a friend in my old hometown when we decided to have a sub for dinner. Submarine sandwiches can be found anywhere; national chains have standardized the product so that now a sandwich bought in Seattle is identical to one from Miami. But Jack and I grew up in a different era. When we were boys one sub shop distinguished itself from another by the freshness of its bread, the selection and quality of its cheeses and cold cuts, the ratio of ingredients, and the order in which they were stacked to build the finished sandwich.

We wanted a sub like the ones we grew up with. Whether those were “authentic” subs was a difficult question to answer. Traditional subs featured Italian ham, prosciutto salami and provolone cheese, along with lettuce, tomato and onion. Regional variations might include various other meats, cheeses and condiments. The history of the submarine sandwich is cloaked in legend. Some called it a derivative of the hoagie, a favorite of Italian immigrants in Philadelphia. Others insisted that both sandwiches were identical to the hero of northern New Jersey. My favorite origin story relates how Dominic Conti gave the name “submarine” to the sandwich he made and sold in his Patterson, New Jersey grocery store in the early 1900’s.

We decided to go looking for an old-fashioned sub shop. If such a place were still to exist we would not find it on a main thoroughfare or even in a strip center located on a side street. The shop we wanted would be in the original location it had occupied since opening decades earlier, built on a corner in an ethnic neighborhood of row houses. We didn’t know just where that original 1950’s style neighborhood sub shop might be hidden, but we would know it when we found it.

The city had changed much in the decades since our childhood. Some of the old neighborhoods were hardly recognizable. Former corner groceries had been converted to video rentals stores. Restaurants that once had featured manicotti and baked zitti now offered Mexican, Chinese or Vietnamese menus. We abandoned the streets we knew and ventured into areas that had been too distant for two boys on bikes to explore. After an hour we nearly gave up and were about to settle for burgers when we happened upon a scene out of the past.

At the intersection of two quiet residential streets, a single business occupied a corner, bathing the sidewalk in a red glow from the neon letters that filled the plate-glass window. They flickered ever-so slightly, almost hypnotically, “Francetti’s Italian Deli”; and painted just below the neon tubes in gold letters, “Since 1947.” We had found it.

A bell on a coiled spring above the door announced our arrival. Inside familiar smells, Italian bread, spiced salami, oregano, garlic greeted us. “I’ll be right with you,” called the young woman behind the counter. We gazed about the room, lost in nostalgia. Along one wall ran three wooden booths, above each a framed picture of a village square with its cathedral. Three small round tables provided additional seating. Two refrigerated glass cases stood to the side of the cash register. One was filled with meats, cheeses and containers of fresh salads and slaws. The other held eight round containers of assorted Breyer’s Ice Cream. On the other side of the register was the cutting board where the clerk built sandwiches behind a glass shield.

On the back wall was a menu and price list, above it a sign that promised, “Meats and Cheese Sliced to Order, Salads Made Daily, Fresh Baked Bread.” Below were a soda fountain dispenser and three electric mixers for milk shakes. Missing were coolers filled with soft drink bottles and racks of potato chips and pretzel bags. The shop was like a comfortable, working museum.

We made our choices from the menu and waited for the clerk to take our order. As she turned toward us the sound of Jack’s gasp told me that we had noticed it together, she was missing a hand. The left arm was severed above the wrist, leaving a slender forearm that tapered to a blunt point. I struggled to hide a puzzled expression as I wondered how she could manage to slice the meat, cheese, tomatoes and bread and then assemble them into a sandwich.

“Do you know what you want?” she smiled.
“I’ll have a special Italian with oil and vinegar and hot peppers, a Coke and chips, for here.”
Jack added, “Make mine the same, no peppers.”
“Have a seat anywhere, I’ll bring it right over.”

Jack and I stayed right where we were. We watched in fascination as she lifted a block of ham and placed it in the meat carver. In seconds she had a stack of slices and reached for the salami, then the cheese. She worked as quickly as anyone I had seen working a deli counter. After adjusting the thickness setting she sliced a tomato, then an onion, removing the dried outer skin afterward. She carried the stack to the sandwich board and selected two rolls from a bin. Steadying each loaf with her forearm she sliced them quickly with a long knife and spread them open side by side. By now we were staring as she quickly continued.

A splash of olive oil then a layer of cheese, then the meat spread evenly; the subs were coming together rapidly. Now some ground pepper, then tomatoes, onions, a hand full of shredded lettuce from a hidden plastic container, hot peppers on one, oregano and vinegar sprinkled on both, and then a final layer of salami spread across the lettuce. They looked delicious, my mouth watered as I watched them completed.

She positioned two dinner plates to the side and dropped a handful of chips on each. Then she turned back to the sandwiches. I saw the challenge at once; how would she manage to single-handedly fold those split rolls piled high with cold cuts, cheese and vegetables into submarine sandwiches. The difficulty lay in making a crease across the top of the layered ingredients then holding them in place as the two bread halves were brought together evenly. A simple solution would be to rest the back of a knife across the top and press down while folding the sandwich around the knife, but that required two hands. Jack and I stole an expectant glance toward each other.

And then she did the unexpected. Without a moment’s hesitation she laid her bare, narrow forearm lengthwise along the stack of cold cuts and, in one fluid motion, folded the roll around her arm, then pulled it smoothly out the end; first my sandwich, then Jack’s. We stood in stunned silence, our mouths gaping, as she looked up, winked at us, then wiped her arm clean with a paper towel.

We sat in the booth and ate in silence, too embarrassed to begin the conversation that eventually would last the entire drive home. We were amazed, impressed, filled with respect. A young woman had shrugged off a misfortune that might have left a strong man bitter for life. To her it seemed hardly an inconvenience. I wondered if I was capable of such strength of spirit, to continue my life and live it in full after my future had been altered forever in an instant.

Decades have passed since Jack and I met the brave Italian girl in the corner sub shop. I can remember every detail of the evening; the pattern of the tablecloth, the buzz of the neon sign in the window, the smiles we shared instead of words as we enjoyed our dinner. I’ve eaten plenty of subs since that one; many were just as good but none as memorable.

Stream of Consciousness (#2)

During summer visits to the Delaware shore I occasionally came across a bizarre animal in the surf, the horseshoe crab. It looked like a cross between a horse’s hoof and a bicycle helmet, with a long rigid tail like a spike. The size ranged from a few inches to more than a foot in width. One winter day I drove to a deserted beach and discovered many thousands of horseshoe crabs; some crawling up from the surf, others littering the beach in a scene of carnage, half-eaten by a horde of gulls that rose in protest of my presence. It was that time of the year when these prehistoric survivors crawl from the sea to mate and then are plundered by birds migrating along the Atlantic Flyway. The drama had been repeated annually for millions of years. I stood alone on the beach that cold afternoon; witness to a great, slow cycle that had moved across the face of the earth longer than my own species. I was humbled.

I accompanied my mother to the grocery store one Saturday morning and there, to my delight, was the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. Oscar Meyer himself was seated at a folding table next to the vehicle, signing autographs. I recognized him immediately from the TV commercials, a jolly dwarfish man in a chef’s hat. I had never been so excited. I still have the miniature die-cast Weinermobile he gave me as a souvenir. I am vegetarian now, but if I ever wished I was a wiener it could only be an Oscar Meyer wiener.

I only hunted once in my life. A friend loaned me a shotgun and took me squirrel hunting. We sat on a rock for hours one autumn morning and listened for squirrels that never came. After changing locations three times we finally heard a rusting off in the distance. “There, under those bushes,” he whispered, “shoot when you see the motion.” I saw and I shot. It was a chipmunk. I felt very guilty and I didn’t want to hunt any longer. My friend shot a single squirrel before we left the woods and he dressed it out at my house. After skinning and quartering the carcass he placed it in a bowl of salt water to soak. “Now let soak for at least six hours in the refrigerator then cut it up in pieces and make a stew, you’re going to love it.” After he left my wife asked, “What are you going to do with it?” I buried the squirrel in the back yard after retrieving its skin and tail from the trash. I never hunted again, and I still find it uncomfortable to watch a Chip & Dale cartoon.

While on vacation we passed through a portion of Arkansas where caverns are abundant. Some small caverns on private land were open to the public and advertised by hand-painted signs along the highway. My wife and I stopped at one of these and received a personal tour by the farmer who lived and worked on the land above the caves. We descended a stairway at the back of his garage and into a system of rooms and passages, ending far below in a huge chamber through which flowed an underground river. Fascinating! As we descended I failed to notice my wife’s hand squeezing mine ever more tightly. By the time we arrived at the stream more than four hundred feet below the surface, her grip on me was painful. I noticed her face had no color. She was breathing in a shallow pant; her gaze locked straight-ahead and unfocussed. “Are you alright?” I asked. “Get me out of here,” she said softly. “You’re OK,” I tried to reassure her. “Get me out now!” she shouted in a panic. The farmer said calmly, “There is a short cut this way.” I didn’t know what was happening but I was anxious to return to the surface. As we climbed a winding stairway the farmer continued, “This happens sometimes, no problem, I’ll refund your entrance fee.” I still was clueless. Back at the car her breathing slowed and she gradually regained her composure. “What happened?” I asked. “I’m claustrophobic, everything closed in on me” she replied, embarrassed. “Claustrophobic?” It’s funny how we may think we know someone well yet really not. I had failed to notice her discomfort in elevators, that she closed her eyes when passing through tunnels, that her dislike of airplanes was not because they left the ground but rather that they were small and confining. She never told me, I never noticed. I wonder what new things I will learn about her during our lifetime together.

On the Road

I read Jack Kerouak’s 1957 novel “On the Road” in the late 60’s. Like many young men I felt a kinship with the central character, Sal Paradise and envied his adventurous roaming of America with free-spirited Dean Moriarty. I was one of many who felt summoned to hit the road like Sal and Dean. But my motivation was nostalgia not curiosity, for in the same year that Kerouak published his account of their odyssey, I was caught up in a transcontinental adventure of my own that rivaled theirs.

In the summer of 1957 my uncle, Travis, and I traveled from Virginia to California and back. I was a twelve years old student on summer vacation. Travis was a 23-year-old Air Force veteran. My grandfather sent him cross-country to return with a homemade camping trailer, built by another uncle who lived on the West Coast. I never knew just why I was invited to accompany my uncle on this trip. The reason given to me was that it would be an adventure and a rare opportunity for a young boy to see America. Looking back, I suspect the real reason was that my grandfather wanted someone to travel with Travis so he would act responsibly. Travis was an unpredictable free spirit like Dean Moriarty. I learned he also was a bipolar alcoholic with a death wish. Our two-week trip lasted all summer, and to call it an adventure would be an understatement.

Uncle Travis picked me up in his battle-ship gray 1946 Plymouth sedan. It was a land yacht, a rolling parlor with room for everything and a backseat as big as a bed. I loaded my bags in the trunk and climbed in front. My mother waved and shouted, “Be careful!” repeatedly as we pulled away. I was a chatterbox for the first fifty miles, going on and on about how excited I was to be traveling to California, to be seeing deserts and the Pacific Ocean, the Rocky Mountains and real Indians. Travis just nodded. When I was talked out we rode in silence for an hour until he turned to me suddenly and spoke.

“Let’s get some things straight between us, OK?”
“OK,” I answered.
“I didn’t want you on this trip but here you are so that’s that.”
“…OK.” My excitement turned to fear. I didn’t know what to expect next.
“I’m in charge so your job is to do what I tell you, got it?”
“OK.” I wondered, was it too late to turn around?
“Do you have any money?”
“Mom gave me fifty dollars.”
“Good, you can buy the things you need with that.”
“What kind of things will I need?” I asked.
“Food, soda, stuff like that.”
“I have to buy my own food?”
“Why should I buy what you eat?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’m just a kid.” Would I starve when my money ran out?
“Hey look,” his voice softened, “your Granddad gave me only enough money to drive to California and back. What I don’t spend I get to keep. I need that money. So, we’ll save all we can, OK? We’ll sleep in the car; make sandwiches. It’ll be fun, you’ll see.”
“OK” I replied. But it did not sound like fun or feel like fun as we rode in silence.

“You want a Coke? I’m buying.”
“Sure,” I answered at the unexpected kindness.
“Good, I need some beer.” Travis signaled a turn and pulled into a gravel parking lot.


In the following days we settled into a absurd routine and the trip became an adventure. Travis chain smoked cigarettes, sipped beer and told stories about his tour of duty in the Air Force. Ours was a military family but he bristled at the attempts by his superiors to impose their discipline. He and the Air Force suffered irreconcilable differences of opinion and both parties became eager to end the disagreeable relationship. The result was a General Discharge. Travis got busy developing new career plans, schemes really. One was to buy five tractor-trailer rigs, fill them with medical supplies, drive them to South America via the Pan American Highway and sell them at great profit in frontier towns along the route. Some of his other projects were equally ambitious.

We got to know each other over the next few days and traveling together became almost fun. Although, Travis was anything but fun when he drank too much. He was an unpredictable, nasty drunk. We slept in the car (I was smaller so I got the front seat), ate doughnuts and bologna sandwiches and refilled canteens with water instead of buying soft drinks. Travis talked a lot about women, especially about how to talk them into doing whatever he wanted them to do. These were things my father should have taught me, he said. I doubted that. His instructions were really lessons in how not to treat people. Travis was a user and a manipulator. He played loosely with the truth and sought to gain an advantage in every encounter.

We enjoyed some side excursions to interesting places. My favorite was to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. This is one of the largest and most beautiful cave systems in the world. After parking Travis and I stood to the side at the ticket gate and waited, I didn’t know why. Suddenly he steered me into the middle of a line of people as he engaged a stranger in conversation. We had slipped into a group of church members who arrived together by bus. Once inside the gate we disengaged and mingled with a different group. There we waited for the park ranger to lead us down into the cave entrance. I wondered if two disappointed members were sent back to wait on the bus because their leader had miscalculated the size of the group.

Some days later we reached the Mojave Desert, a vast expanse of white sand that looked like an Arabian movie set. We bought a canvas water bag and hung it from the front bumper, following the example of the more experienced desert crossers around us. It would be needed if the radiator boiled over, a real danger. Halfway through the crossing we stopped at a roadside oasis, actually just a parking lot with palm trees and a water spigot. A fellow traveler told us that the original road was just beyond the great sand dune that paralleled the concrete highway we were following. Travis wanted to see it and immediately set off to climb the dune. I followed.

It was amazing. The original road stretched from horizon to horizon, covered here and there by drifting dunes. It was constructed entirely of wood, like a giant boardwalk crossing the world’s largest beach. The wooden planks were bleached nearly white, like bones, and there was an occasional gap where a board had been pried loose and carried away. The roadway was no more than twelve feet wide. When approaching cars met, one must have yielded and driven into the sand.

We continued on, finally arriving in Oceanside, California. There we stayed with my aunt, Travis’ sister, and her husband, Paul. Uncle Paul was a Marine, a drill instructor at Camp Pendleton. He drank even more beer than Travis. They enjoyed each other’s company immensely. Travis and I stayed in the camper set up in the back yard. Paul had designed and built it himself, attaching the top-half of a surplus military tent to the camper body constructed of varnished marine plywood. The tent was erected with a single tall center pole, like a miniature circus tent. It was unique, a well-crafted precursor of the pop-up camping trailer.

Our planned one-week visit grew into months. Travis often spent the day, and many nights, driving up and down the coast. I stayed at home with my aunt. I asked to go exploring with him but he warned me that the places he visited were not suitable for a boy like me. “Hell, I probably shouldn’t go into half of them myself,” he joked. Some nights he came home bloodied. Other nights he didn’t come home at all.

Travis had promised me a trip to Disneyland for weeks. At last, one day he said, “Let’s go visit the mouse.” We drove for an hour to Anaheim and pulled into a giant parking lot; Cinderella’s Castle was clearly visible beyond the gates. I was filled with excitement. Travis opened a beer. After twenty minutes I finally asked, “Aren’t we going inside?” He laughed, “Hell, if I had money to go inside we would have come here a month ago.” That episode may still be the single biggest disappointment of my life.

In August Travis began talking about returning to Virginia. I couldn’t wait. After several false starts we finally welded a hitch to the back of the Plymouth, hooked up the trailer and set off into the sunrise. The trip back was no less eventful than the trip out. We were caught in a hailstorm, suffered a fire in the electrical system, visited a prostitute (I waited in the car); there were adventures I never shared with my friends back home. They would not have believed me. In one incident Travis left me on the side of the road in a barren scrub desert to guard the trailer while he rode in the tow truck that pulled the car forty miles to a garage for service. I had to sit atop the trailer tongue until he returned, counterbalancing the tail-heavy trailer, which was parked on a grade, its wheels chocked with rocks. He didn’t return for fourteen hours. I had to urinate in the dust while seated, unable even to stand for fear that without my weight holding the trailer in place it would tip over and roll down the highway into oncoming traffic.

I was crying when he finally returned, “Where have you been, I was worried?”
“Oh, I wasn’t worried at all,” he said, tugging on a beer, “I knew you could take care of yourself.”

“How was your trip, did you have a good time?” Mom asked when we finally arrived home.
“Yeah, it was OK.”
“Well tell me, what did you do?” she asked.
“Oh, all kinds of things.” I never got much more specific than that. She asked me once if Uncle Travis took me to see Disneyland.
“Yes,” I answered.

The time I spent with Uncle Travis that summer was certainly an adventure, but nothing like the adventure the rest of his life turned out to be. Just the highlights read like the outline of a novel. Travis was injured severely in a car accident and woke up in a rural hospital lying on a cold steel table being washed off in preparation for transport to a mortuary. He spent the next ten months in a full body cast as his multiple fractures mended. He won a lawsuit against the hospital and married the nurse who had cared for him during his recovery. They had four children and eventually moved to Alaska, traveling in a motor home built from the front-end and chassis of an old Cadillac limousine. After settling on a homestead he abandoned his family and returned to California, where he died on a sidewalk one evening under mysterious circumstances.

Travis’ widow married a native Eskimo and stayed with the children in Alaska. I began corresponding with them nearly twenty years later but stopped when one of his daughters asked me what I could tell her about the father she had hardly known. I didn’t know how to answer her.

Kerouak’s novel of life on the road reminded me of my odyssey with Uncle Travis that summer in 1957. I felt an urge to strike out again, to invite a friend to leave our comfortable routines behind, point the hood ornament toward the setting sun and drive until we had exhausted the pavement beneath our wheels. I knew it could be done; I had done it.

Lies I Have Told

Everyone lies. I like to believe that most people are honest most of the time. I am. I would lie only in certain situations; to avoid being hurt, to avoid embarrassment, to avoid punishment, to flatter, to gain a confidence, to inflate my accomplishments, to improve my reputation. The list could go on and on.

I don't lie as much as I once did, and I never did lie all that much. The 12-Step program I follow demands rigorous honesty. Now I try to be honest in all my affairs, especially when I find it difficult.

Looking back over my life there were lies I repeated often. Here are some of them.

"I flew in the second seat of a an F-4 Phantom fighter jet." It never happened. I was close to them, walked around them on the deck of an aircraft carrier, spoke with their pilots by radio as they flew missions, but I never flew in one. I always wanted to. I often imagined how it might feel. Imagining an event was almost like remembering it. It was easy to lie about something that seemed almost like a memory. This was a lie meant to enhance my image and reputation. I usually told it just after someone else told their own story that made me feel inadequate.

"I work in television." This lie usually was told to a girl to impress her. I was careful to tell it only when I was travelling out of town. I have made this boast to airline flight attendants, patrons in bars, exotic dancers. The exaggeration was intended to boost my confidence by making me feel more important. But my inferiority complex prevented me from making myself sound TOO improtant. Usually I claimed to be something ordinary like a cameraman or a sound boom operator. Ironically, I did work in television years later, but by then I was married and past that period in my life when it was important to impress girls.

"I'm retired." This was a passive lie. In my later years I have answered "Yes" when asked "Are you retired?" I imagined that the person who asked believed that I looked sufficiently mature, intelligent and prosperous to have attained a life of leisure so, what the hell, I went along with it. I was plagued by feelings of not being good enough. If I thougth you mistakenly believed I was better than I perceived myself to be then I was happy to go along with your perception rather than mine.

"I know what you mean." This lie was seldom verbalized. Instead, it was communicated with a nod, a knowing look or some other gesture indicating that I understood what the speaker meant. I was afraid of looking stupid. I thought I could avoid looking stupid by never admitting "I don't know."

"I am fine, thank you" This was not always a lie but it was the way I always answered the question "How are you?" I might be physically ill, sad to the point of hopeless dispair, supressing a burning rage, filled with cold fear; my answer always was "Fine." Any other answer might reveal that I was not in complete control of my emotions, my life, my world. To admit a lack of control would reveal my weakness and vulnerability. That was to be avoided at all cost.

"Yes" This was only I lie when I really meant "No." If someone invited me to join them in an activity I thought I would not enjoy, I might answer "Yes" because I did not know how to comfortably express my true feeling. I was a people pleaser. It wasn't that I went through life sucking up. Rather, I was just afraid to be honest. An honest answer might disappoint you and then you would be mad at me. I would panic at the thought of making someone angry. If you were angry you might harm me in some way or, equally bad, you might just dismiss me and ignore me.

"No" This was only a lie when I really meant "Yes." I had come to believe that I did not deserve the good things that came my way in life. I constantly sabotaged my own happiness. Saying "No" when I meant "Yes" often caused me to miss out on opportunities. Declining an opportunity was an act of self-sacrifice. Somehow, I had come to view self-sacrifice as a virtue. Feeling virtuous substituted for feeling good. I am not sure why this convoluted logic made sense to me but it did. I am glad I no longer think this way.

Being rigorously honest means not only being truthful in one's expression and deed but also to seek and to accept the truth. The truth was something I often avoided and denied. I was uncomfortable living in reality. It was easier for me to distort reality than to accept and embrace it. My methods of distortion were self-delusion and substance abuse.

I seldom lie now. When I do it is a painful reminder of a time in my life when lying seemed my only defense against fear and pain. I since have learned to live comfortably in reality, accepting the things I cannot change and finding the courage to deal with the things I can.

Marine Biology

I was fortunate to land a dream job one summer while attending college, research assistant at the University of Delaware Marine Biology Station in Lewes, Delaware. When I reported to work I learned I was one three assistants selected from eight hundred applicants. I was planning to major in marine biology so the job was an opportunity to gain real-world experience in the field.

The research station was a collection of small buildings, the only structures on an island separated from the mainland by a fifty-yard wide inlet. We traveled to and from the island in small outboard-powered utility boats. The inlet was alternately calm and running swiftly, depending upon the tide, as it rose and fell in the upstream marshland. I quickly honed my boating skills just by crossing between the parking lot and the research station.

I assisted several biologists who were working on their doctoral theses or had already earned their degree. I did a variety of jobs; all were interesting, some were downright exciting.

The station was home to two research trawlers. Twice a month we would collect samples in the Delaware Bay by dragging the trawl net along the bottom for a distance of one-mile. Everything in our path was collected by the huge net and then deposited on the deck. Sometimes it came up nearly empty, at other times it contained tons of marine life. My job was to handle the net and sort through the hundreds of animals collected, tossing some into coolers for later study and the remainder back over the side.

We each brought personal coolers onboard to keep some of the catch for ourselves. I brought home fish that could seldom be caught on a hook. After one cruise I returned with two flounder, each nearly three feet in length. They were so thick that I had to fillet the fillets. I gave one to an elderly neighbor who used to boast to me about his fishing skills. His jaw dropped in disbelief as I handed him the fish. When he asked how I caught it I answered, “on a worm, just lucky I guess.”

On one trip our net snagged something so heavy that it stopped us dead in the water. We backed up until we were directly over the obstruction then, with our stern pulled deep into the water from the weight, continued to winch the net and the unknown object to the surface. It was a huge iron anchor of the type carried by sailing ships in the eighteenth century. A check of our charts showed no wrecks indicated at our location. It was possible that we had discovered an unknown ship that sank centuries before. We cut the anchor free and recorded our coordinates, planning to return in the future to explore further.

One of my regular duties was to collect data on the population of weakfish, or sea trout, in the bay. I brought fifty average-sized specimens caugth on the trawler back to the lab. There I recorded the weight, length, age and stomach content of each fish. The age was determined by removing the inner-ear bone, or otolith, from the skull. Otoliths have growth rings, like a tree. By counting the rings the age of the fish could be calculated precisely. Stomach contents were examined and separated by type; shrimp, bait fish, etc. The amount of each food source was measured by dropping it into a graduated cylinder and recording how much water it displaced. The resulting data tables and graphs provided an indication of the health and annual growth rate of the weakfish population.

The most fascinating project I worked on that summer involved brain surgery on sharks. I administered anesthesia as researchers opened the skull of the shark and severed the nerve connecting the fish's lateral line to the brain. The lateral line runs the entire length of the body on both sides of all fish and is used to sense the source of vibrations in the water. After surgery I walked the sharks in a pool to keep water flowing over their gill racks until they regained consciousness. These were not dangerous sharks. They were a species called dogfish, or squalus acanthias, reaching a length of about two feet and unable to puncture skin with their bite. The purpose of the research was to study the ability of sharks to locate their prey with their lateral lines both intact and severed.

There was a very real danger of shark attacks at the research station. Large sharks often congregated in the inlet between the island and the mainland each day. They came to feed on hundreds of pounds of clam scraps released from the Doxsee seafood processing plant just upstream. The plant accumulated the scraps in large holding tanks during the canning operation then flushed them into the inlet waters on the outgoing tide. Often, when crossing the inlet to return to the parking lot, sharks of six feet and longer would pass by the boat, sometimes grazing the hull. I always felt fear when I saw the dorsal fin break the surface or the large grey body gliding just under the surface.

That was the best job I ever had. I looked forward to completing my undergraduate studies and perhaps returning one day to the station to specialize in one of the marine sciences. My plans were confounded by my difficulty in mastering chemistry. Eventually I turned from marine biology and majored instead in journalism and television production. Perhaps that was for the best. I suffered from sea sickness whenever we set out in swells greater than two feet. That could be a real handicap for a scientist who goes down to the sea in ships to make his living.

Stream of Consciousness (#1)

I love that the days are growing cooler. Autumn is beautiful where I live. The first snow is always exciting. I enjoy winter right up until the moment I notice again how painful the cold can be. In a perfect world the first snow would be followed a week later by the first day of spring.

My dashboard CHECK ENGINE light came on today. I hate when that happens. It means the auto repair shop will have my Jeep all day and then probably will call me at 4:00 to say they need it all the next day to complete a $300 repair. Whew! Now that I have vented frustration I can begin to feel gratitude; I have a nice car, I can afford the repair bill and to lose the vehicle for a day won’t present a hardship that will affect my income or safety. Most of us in America have no clue of how spoiled we are.

This part of Pennsylvania is filled with apple orchards. As I drive home in the evening I am enticed by hand-written signs offering Sweet Apples and Fresh Cider. There is something special about buying apples from a wooden stand at the edge of an orchard. I always end up eating one as I drive home thinking; “it doesn’t get any better than this!”

We bought our teenage daughter a digital camera for her birthday this year. When I sit down at the computer I am surprised to see such original and interesting screensavers. She has a good eye and a creative flair. I had always thought of myself as a talented amateur photographer. She surpasses me. That makes me proud and happy.

A friend and I rode up into the mountains last weekend and I guided him down a hidden trail to show him my favorite trout stream. It was a beautiful day, we spied fish hiding in the pools, and the forest leaves were just breaking out in color. I stuck me as we were returning to the car; it’s good to have a friend to share your favorite things with.

Every time I see a military person in uniform, at the bank or the grocery or the gas pump, I want to go over and say “thank you for serving our nation and risking your own safety to protect us.” But I don’t do it. I’m afraid I might only embarrass them or myself. So, instead I display an American flag on the back of my car and over it I placed a magnetic yellow ribbon with the inscription “Protect Our Troops.” It seems so inadequate.

I stopped eating meat a year ago. I don’t miss it. There is something about eating another animal that bothers me now that I am vegetarian. It isn’t bad or wrong to eat meat, but for me it has ceased to be necessary. I have found satisfying alternatives that supply all my nutritional needs. Now when I pass cows in a field or chickens in a pen I don’t lament their inevitable fate, but the hint of guilt that I used to feel is gone. I am no longer a component of their destiny. I am not an animal-rights advocate and I am comfortable wearing leather belts and shoes. I don’t think any cow would begrudge me for putting his skin to purposeful use after others have carved a meal from his shoulder.

I would find it difficult to live life as a woman. The hardest part would be feeling pressured to be attractive. The dictionary defines attractive as “pleasing to the eye” or “drawing attention.” Most men do not go through life feeling obliged to please the eye of another. I don’t search my closet in the morning for clothes I think you might enjoy looking at. I choose clothes that are unwrinkled and free of stains. I don’t want to look like a gigolo; I just want to avoid looking like a bum. And, drawing attention to myself was never one of my priorities. My life would go smoother if I could be anonymous and invisible. I have heard women say it would be easy to live as a man. Perhaps, but I am a man and some days I don’t find it all that easy myself.

I am eternally grateful to be, at the present moment, alive, healthy and relatively comfortable. If I am careful, fortunate and continue to receive God’s grace, I may be equally grateful in the next moment.

Buck Naked

I was always fascinated by nudist colonies. As a kid in the fifties I never really saw pornography but many boys I knew had a nudist magazine hidden somewhere in their room. I had heard of pornography, it was pictures of bad people doing nasty things. Nudist magazines were different; they were filled with pictures of regular people doing ordinary things. The people just didn’t have any clothes on. They were naked. Can you believe it? Buck-naked!

We could sit for hours and look at naked people swimming or playing volleyball or miniature golf or just lying on a beach towel getting a tan all over. Ladies were the most interesting to look at. We could hardly keep our eyes off them. The men were kind of gross and looked goofy just standing around with nothing on.

Years later, in my twenties, I was joking around with some friends when someone suggested we visit a nudist colony. We laughed then forgot about it. It came up a few more times over the following weeks, plans were made and then dropped until three of us finally decided to go.

On the Saturday morning we were to leave, the third person dropped out. Carla and I debated whether to continue with our plan. A group of three sounded safe and adventurous, but going as a couple would be a whole different experience. I didn’t know Carla very well, she was really just a friend of a friend, a nice person and pleasant to talk with. We discussed the trip nervously, hesitant to look each other in the eye. We covered our embarrassment with laughter, wondering what our friends might say when they learned we had spent the day together undressed.

“What the heck, let’s do it” we finally agreed with a shrug and a handshake. We were off on an awkward adventure to Sunshine Park in Tom’s River, New Jersey. For the first hour we talked and laughed like any couple on a first date, then rode in silence listening to the radio. Occasionally, I stole a glance in her direction. Was this really about to happen?

Hand painted signs directed us down a dirt road through a pine forest. At the office a naked man behind the desk stamped our hands and explained the rules for visitors. “Visiting men, no clothes. Women, bottom covering is optional. Here’s a towel, enjoy your visit.”

I parked beside a small pavilion and we stood on opposite sides of the car.

“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Bottom covering is optional for women,” she said.
“You’re not taking off your clothes?”
“I don’t know, are you?”
“I don’t know, I guess I will if you do,” I said.
She looked around nervously. A naked couple was coming down the road toward the pavilion.
“We can leave if you want to, “ I offered.
Without a word she tugged at her top. I unbuckled my belt.

When we stepped out together behind my car our gazes were locked on each other’s eyes, both too embarrassed to look down. “This is weird,” I said. “Yeah, really,” she replied. It was going to be a really weird day.

The park was filled with families; moms, dads, kids, old folks. They were just regular people doing ordinary things, and that made things seem all the more weird. A couple passed us on bicycles, two boys with baseball gloves and a bat ran by, no one looked embarrassed at all. They were just enjoying a Saturday morning on a beautiful summer day.

We passed a miniature golf course. I thought, there is no more humble a sight than a naked man hunkered over a golf ball in a putting stance. Next we passed a volleyball court where teams of men and women leaped and twisted in the air. It was a like a fantasy come true for a kid who had spent so many nights imaging that very scene! In a pool people were diving and swimming, a softball game was in progress in a field by the woods, everywhere sunbathers were lying on towels getting a tan all over.

After an hour we were no longer embarrassed; after two we were enjoying ourselves like everyone around us. I overheard a woman comment about those weirdoes on their boats. I discovered what she meant when we rounded a corner and arrived at the beach. Bathers were lying on the sand or swimming in the river that bordered the park. Two hundred feet off shore, just outside a line of buoys, a flotilla of powerboats was anchored. The occupants were scanning the beach through binoculars, drinking beer and shouting an occasional rude remark at the sunbathers who ignored them completely. A police boat cruised back and forth just inside the buoys, warning boaters not to become too rowdy.

I was appalled. They really were a bunch of weirdoes. I felt no urge to cover myself; after all, I had every right to be there, enjoying myself with a bunch of like-minded people. The boaters were the weirdoes; gawking and acting like idiots. As we left the beach I suddenly was struck by the irony of the bizarre scene; until that very day I would likely have been one of the weirdo boaters rather than a nudist on the beach.

It was a fun day. We laughed and reminisced all the way home. Despite having spent the day undressed with Carla we continued to be just friends, although occasionally we would share a private, knowing look. I never returned to Sunshine Park or to any place like it. My fascination with nudist colonies was over. Been there, done that.

People are just people. Without their clothes on I was reluctant to categorize them. If I judged them at all it was by their behavior and attitude rather than by my own prejudice. I did not feel peculiar and imperfect while being surrounded by so many people comfortable with their own imperfections.

I haven’t seen a nudist magazine in many years. I don’t think it would arouse the same naughty curiosity in me that they once did. Instead, my thoughts would likely drift back to a pleasant day spent with nice people on a warm New Jersey summer.

Like a Gypsy

There was a time about twenty-five years ago when I found myself between things; jobs, commitments, rational thoughts. I moved to a distant city and lived my life without a plan or direction. I had done things like this before. I called it "embarking on an adventure." Others might call it "running away."

My home was a tiny rented trailer in a campground. Not the kind of campground where families in Winnebagos stop for the evening and roast marshmallows. This was a campground where people with little money could live indefinitely, sharing a single payphone and a cinder block bathhouse.

My trailer had electricity and running water. The water ran from a faucet, into a sink , down a drain then into a bucket at the end of a hose. I cooked, slept and watched a 12-inch television. Life was undemanding.

My neighbors were interesting, like a collection of characters from a Steinbeck novel. They had come from a hundred different places, intending to spend only a while in this place until they could travel on to a better place.

Beside me lived a family. The husband was a tall, thin red-haired ex-state trooper. His wife was a pleasant black woman with a child from her previous marriage. With them lived three adopted Asian siblings. They all slept together in a converted school bus with plywood bunkbeds and sheets hung for privacy. The pair had met while working together, he as a trooper, she a radio dispatcher. Their relationship became a scandal and it was difficult to find good jobs after being terminated because no one gave them a good reference. I enjoyed visiting them. They were kind and loving people, raising their children to respect themselves and others.

In a tent at the edge of the campground lived a couple with two black Labrador retrievers. It was a large Army surplus canvas tent in which they had constructed a wooden floor and installed a wood stove made from a 20-gallon steel drum. They had lived there for a number of years. Neither spoke much about the past, but the little I heard included talk about a bum-rap and the need to disappear. They often invited me to dinner and were willing to share all they had.

The most unusual neighbors were a young couple also living in a converted bus. He was a self-proclaimed preacher, she was very pregnant. Every Sunday worshipers would assemble beside the bus in folding chairs. He had gathered his followers one at a time by ambushing the members of other congregations as they arrived at church, urging them to forsake the lies of false prophets inside those temples, inviting them instead to join a fellowship of true believers who met beneath the giant oak trees of the campground. One night the preacher shared his secret past with me over a beer. He had turned to doing his Holy Father's work only after his birth father had failed to make him a partner in the family construction business. On the day he disappeared he emptied the company bank account by writing checks to television evangalists.

Eventually I found a job that enabled me to live in a real house like most people. The house was comfortable and the neighbors were nice, but life there lacked a certain grittiness that I had come to enjoy. I returned to visit the campground some years later. Beyond the entrance gate I found only a stand of oak trees in a meadow of tall grass. All traces of the neighbors I had known and the gypsy life we had shared were gone. I stood alone beneath the giant oak trees surrounded by nothing but a thousand memories.

Moments of Clarity

There have been moments in my life when problems, fears and worries were swept away and the priority of things I believed to be important suddenly changed. These were my "moments of clarity." They occurred at times like the birth of my children, the death of my parents, the exchange of marriage vows. The most intense moments immediately followed near-death experiences. My first thoughts then were "I’m lucky to be alive!" Here are some examples.

Fall From Dam - When I was twelve I had been using crutches for two years because of a bone disease that left my right leg unable to bear weight. My neighborhood friends were Boy Scouts and I wanted to join their troop. Perhaps in an effort to dissuade me, several boys proposed that I pass an "audition" by keeping up with them as we hiked a progressively more difficult course they had mapped out in the nearby woods. I performed well until we attempted to cross the top of a dam. The dam was partially collapsed and once formed a lake where it had blocked a small stream. I made it to the center by squeezing carefully between my crutches, which were positioned at the very edges of the narrow top. At the center of the dam was a two-foot wide section that had crumbled away. As I attempted to step across, one crutch slipped and I fell eight feet to the ground below. I remember crying out as I fell and then waking up sometime later on my back. I was lying in a shallow pond with water up around my face, nearly covering my nose and mouth. I sat up slowly and looked for the others. They were gone. Later I learned that they believed I was dead and had sworn a pact of silence before returning to their homes. The pond around me was bright red. Then I noticed the blood arcing across the water from the deep cut in the top of my head, spurting in rhythm with my pulse. I had landed headfirst onto a large block of concrete broken from the dam. Beside me were my crutches, one snapped in half. At first I did not know where I was or how I had gotten there. Eventually I got to my feet, pressed my hand against the wound to slow the bleeding and began hobbling out of the woods on the single unbroken crutch. I made it home after half an hour, frightening my mother so badly that she fainted to the kitchen floor. A neighbor took us both to the hospital where I received stitches and was treated for a concussion. This was my first brush with death. As I rode to the hospital I experienced my moment of clarity. I knew I had cheated death and that the dawning of each new day for the remainder of my life was a gift.

Drawbridge Opening - My wife and I were driving in the country on a Sunday afternoon when we came to a drawbridge that was just about to open for an approaching ship. It was a very old bridge design in which the entire center span was raised by cables and pulleys installed in two towers constructed on the opposite shores of the canal. As the roadway rose into the air an iron fence emerged from the end of the pavement to prevent cars from plunging into the water. We walked up to the fence to better view the ship about to pass. I could faintly hear someone shouting behind me. Turning, I noticed a man waving his arms from the window of a building several hundred feet away. It was the bridge tender calling from the control house. He was shouting "Move away!" "But we just want to see the ship"; I called back. "Move now!" he yelled even louder, now waving his arms frantically. I took my wife’s hand and moved from the fence back toward our car, mumbling "What an ass." Just then we heard a loud Thump behind us as the pavement trembled beneath our feet. We turned to see a giant wall of concrete where the fence and open water had been just a second before. The bridge tender had been warning us away from the section of pavement that was about to be occupied by the descending massive iron and concrete counterweight. We had nearly been smashed as flat as caterpillars under a boot. Neither of us had realized the significance of the yellow caution lines painted on the roadway beneath us. With expressions of shock we looked at each other then turned back toward the control building. The bridge tender shouted one last comment, "Stupid bastards!" We rode home in silence, each lost in our own moment of clarity.

Lucky Hesitation - Returning home one everning, my wife and I stopped for a red light at a busy intersection. We turned toward each other and continued our conversation as we waited for the light to change. After a minute the driver behind began honking his horn. I glanced in the mirror, then at the signal and saw that it had changed to green while we talked. The driver honked again and I was just about to instinctively proceed forward, but thankfully I first glanced to my left. A gasoline tanker tractor-trailer that had ignored the red light suddenly blew past us and through the intersection at fifty-five miles an hour. A second's hesitation had prevent us from being crushed and burned in a fiery collision. I kept my foot on the brake and waved the impatient driver around us. We sat silently through the next cycle of the traffic light and remained silent during the ride home. Again, problems and worries disappeared, priorities changed. It was the first day of the rest of our lives.

Have you ever said to yourself, "If I could have a second chanced to live my life, I would do things differently?" In my moments of clarity I realize that every day is the second chance I might wish for. Every day is an opportunity to apply the lessons learned from the past and to live life as if this day might be my last.

The truth is, it just might be.

Awesome Moments

While driving home tonight my mind treated me to a stream of memories. They were moments from my past that seemed profound at the time and continue to be important to me.

Walking across the Misissippi
When I was 12 years old I hopped across stepping stones spanning a ten-foot wide stream that is the headwater of the Mississippi River. It flows from Lake Itasca in Minnesota. As I stepped from stone to stone I could visualize the entire course of the great wide river that stretched wrom whee I stood all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Between me and the distant river delta meandered North America's mightiest waterway. Awesome!


Passing through the Straights of Gibralter
As a sailor in 1964 I sat at the radar scope and watched the image of the Straights of Gibraltor draw nearer. Just before the our ship slipped through the narrow passage separating two great continents I stepped out on the deck to view the Rock of Gibralter looming overhead as we entered the Mediterranean Sea. It struck me then that I was gazing upon the same view that met Christopher Columbus as he left the secure waters of the known world to begin a voyage of faith toward the unexplored western horizon.

Observing a nuclear milestone
One weekend in 1968 I read an article in the paper treporting that reported the last iron drawbridge crossing the Delaware-Chesapeake Canal would close and begin disassembly the following day. I drove to the bridge that night and saw it raised fo the last time. As I stood at the end of the walkway I watched a most unusual ship pass beneath the elevated span. It was a freighter of modern design, painted white with blue trim. On its hull, just below the bridge, was a symbol of the atom, a nucleus with orbiting electrons. The ship passed in wha seemed an eerie silence. I saw its name painted across the stern as it glided by, Savannah. The story of the mystery ship appeared in the newspaper the next week. It was the world's first nuclear-powered commercial cargo ship on its last voyage, sailing to its final destination to be decommisioned and mothballed. The vessel was a technical success but its operation was too expensive to be profitable. I would discover the ship again decades later, on display at a nautical museum in Charleston, South Carolina. The experience that night in 1968 was filled with irony; a futuristic ship on its final voyage into obsolescence had passed beneath an equally obsolete bridge in its final night in operation. Before me lay an intersection where diverse times and technologies converged one starry night. For a moment I had stood in the Twilight Zone.

Targetted as an assassin
Jimmy Carter campaigned in Saint Petersburg, Florida during his presidential run against Ronald Reagan. I worked in an office building that bordered the same city park as the building in which Carter was speaking. From an eighth floor window I had an eagle's view of the crowds and the presidential motorcade parked below. Most interesting to me were the security teams stationed on the rooftops of neighboring buildings. I spied on their activities through the long telephoto lens of my 35 mm camera. Each team was composed of six to eight men, some in civilian clothes, others in military fatigues. They were equipped with radios, binoculars and scoped sniper rifles and they were busy observing the surrounding buildings and the crowd in the park and streets below. As I scanned from team to team it suddenly struck me that each team seemed to be turning to the same activity, looking back at me. Not only was I being watched through binoculars but the snipers were beginning to train their rifles in my direction as well! It made no sense. I lowered my camera and looked around the eighth floor elevator lobby behind me. I was alone. Could they really be looking at me? I raised the camera again. Every man on every roof was staring in my direction. I lowered the camera, confused. Then my blood seemed to run cold. They considered me a threat to the president and I began to understand why. It was my camera! I had attached a portable tripod to its base. It was folded forward, sitting just below the telephoto lens and pointed in the same direction. I found it convenient to keep the tripod in place because it served as a convenient grip, enabling me to handle the camera easily while the heavy lens was attached. The tripod was a foot long tube, black and as thick as a broom handle. Three folded legs were stored inside and in its end was a hole, threaded so it could attached it to a base or floor stand. I remembered thinking to myself as I had attached it to the camera earlier that day, "Gee, this thing almost looks like a gun barrel, I hope no one mistakes it for a weapon." Suddenly, I was filled with fear. Should I gesture to the security teams in some way to indicate my peaceful intent? Should I remove the handle there in front of the window while they watch? The longer I stood there the more fearful I became. I was afraid that policemen might be running up the stairwells behind me or, worse, that a bullet might crash through the window at any moment to neutralize me. Holy cow! As calmly as I could, I walked down the hallway and turned a corner, out of view. Then I quickly walked to my office, stored the camera in my desk, rode the elevator to the street below and lost myself in the crowd. All that day I waited for hands to grab me from behind and wrestle me to the ground. It never happened.

There are more moments like these that are burned forever in my memory, but it is late and the alarm clock will signal the beginning of my day early tomorrow morning. I'll save those stories for another time.

Poetry

I published a poem in a college literary magazine, offending my wife. I think she believed I found fault with her freckles. The poem wasn't meant to be hurtful. I was just trying to be witty.

The Freckle

A marvelous thing, the freckle.
So much more than just a spot.
A brownish, roundish fleck, a speck,
Inglorious it's not.

It serves a noble purpose,
Whether found on back or face,
Adorning what might otherwise
Be just an empty space.

An attempt at a more serious poem was this one about man's relationship to computers, although it is a bit dated and corny now, thirty years after I wrote it. I always had a love/hate relationship with the computer. I was an operator and programmer of large mainframe systems in my youth. This was written many years before the first PC appeared, when a single computer system could fill an entire room with dozens of equipment cabinets and components . I penned this poem late one lonely night while operating a large business computer system in a deserted corporate data center.

The Computer

I stand and watch the blinking lights
As I have done so many nights.
Alone with dread I've stood this ground
And watched it work without a sound.

There before me, silently
Directing mankind's destiny
Stands the creature so adored,
A man-made cybernetic Lord.

With fading hope for many years
I've stared in awe, as one who peers
Through quiet pew rows at the cross
And felt the sorrow of man's loss.

How could we, through our own neglect,
Ignore the gift of intellect
And choose to live in subject rule
Beneath an automated ghoul?

Oh, God, if only men could see
These things that now seem clear to me
They'd kill the evil beast today
And turn to follow in Your way.

I fear that time may never come
And man will finally succumb.
The only remnant of his might,
A cold and lifeless blinking light.

In our present age I no longer fear that man might fall under the control of some all-powerful monolithic computer system. It is more likely that we will choose to sit contentedly at the keyboards of our PCs, having traded our televisions for an even more satisfying device, one with even greater potential for intellectual and emotional addiction.

Whoa! I'd better lighten up.

Time Machine

I would like to meet my parents. I mean, meet the people they were when they weren’t just being my Mother and Father. Both have passed away, so to meet them now would require a time machine. I would set it to transport me back to the day they were introduced. Then I could see how they reacted upon meeting each other and observe their behavior as they tried to make a favorable impression.

My parents met in New York City during the Second World War. Dad was a sailor, disarmingly handsome and a silver-tongued charmer. I know this because his charm and good looks continued to be both assets and liabilities for the next two decades. Mom was a brassy fun-loving flirt. That was the description she offered of herself much later in life when I asked about the early years.

Mom said she fell in love with Dad the first moment she saw him. He was loud, conceited and a great dancer. She just had to meet him and make a date. I don’t know how Dad felt about her. He didn’t talk much about those times, except to say that he had married much too early.

I would like to travel back in my time machine and eavesdrop during important milestones in their lives; marriage proposal, wedding, birth of their children. Bad times would interest me as much as good times; the death of friends and family, fights, infidelities.

It is more than curiosity that makes wish for a secret window into the world of these two. I have a need to understand. How did two so very different people spend over half a century together amid such anger, resentment and violence while displaying so little love? Perhaps the answer might lie in the ability to watch their relationship change and evolve over time, beginning at a point before my birth.

I remember happy times in my early childhood. But I also remember angry words and physical violence. The violence escalated until I became fearful that someone might die. Sometimes the threat of violence was more frightening than the act itself. I remember an incident in which Mom stood at the top of the stairs with a straightened coat hanger, threatening to bring her eight-month pregnancy to a violent end. Dad shouted up to her; "Go ahead, I dare you to do it!" I stood behind him crying; "No, Mommy, no!" while pressing my little sister’s face against my chest to shield her eyes from the horror.

The following week a curious neighbor would have seen only a seemingly happy and normal family waiting to welcome its newest member into the world. Bizarre dramas like this were acted out behind closed doors and drawn curtains. They became our family secrets. These experiences left me a confused and conflicted child.

Alcohol played a role in many of these incidents. It seemed always to be present.

I survived my childhood. It is far behind me now. Although similar painful experiences helped to shape the person I am, they do not condemn me to a life of acting out past psychic traumas, thank God.

On second thought, I have no need to travel back in a time machine. What good would be accomplished by reliving those years? What new knowledge would I gain by experiencing the same events, this time as an observer rather than a participant? What would be changed?

My time would be better spent looking into myself and identifying the negative attitudes and behaviors that have resulted from past experiences. Once identified I can work to change them. If alcohol abuse contributed to dysfunction in the family of my childhood than I would be wise not to abuse alcohol and risk the same fate for my present family.

But, as a fan of science fiction I wonder, what if I really could climb into a time machine and magically transported myself to the New York City bar where my parents met that night in March of 1945? What would I do when I arrived?

I loved my Mother and Father. Knowing what disappointment and pain the future held in store for them, I might choose to interfere with their introduction and prevent them from meeting. I alone would know what future they would miss. At the moment I stepped between them and changed their fate I would cease to be, having exchanged my own existence for the possibility of a happier life for two strangers who would not become my parents.