Mother’s Day: The 5 year old Prodigal Son

It’s funny now to reflect on my mom’s absence in my life. Most of us choose to make autonomous moves to individuate. But when someone dies and is gone for a long period of time, those moves to be a separate person with a separate identity don’t seem to be as important as they did at the time. Makes me think of running away as a child.

Most children remember either wanting to run away or some small foray away from home. I’m 5 or 6 years old. I put some items together in a bag along with my lunch box. I had a “Lone Ranger” lunch box. I put some bologne sandwiches in there, sandwiches that I had made up myself. I had no idea how long I was going to be gone and as a result I was not going to be without sustenance for a long period of time. (What’s really funny is I packed a brown-bag lunch when my wife and I went to the hospital for the birth of my daughter. I was thinking the same thing. You never know how long these things are going to take.) In the bag was a change of underwear and a clean polo shirt. Grandma Sylves was big on always having clean underwear. When we would ask her why that was a big deal, she’d say, you never know when you’re going to get into an accident. And if you did, you want to make sure the doctors and nurses see that you have on clean underwear.” Somehow it made sense at the time, probably because I was a bedwetter. Accidents happen all the time with a bedwetter, but I don’t think that’s the kind of accident she was referring to. And that sentiment was not just my grandmothers, as I heard other kid’s mothers and grandmothers express the same thing.

Well, I don’t remember why I decided to run away other than I was mad at my mother and I announced to her I was leaving for good. And out the door I went around to the side of the house where the pasture was located. It is interesting that I chose that direction. As I reflect on it now, the opposite side of the house was the area where we spent the great majority of our time, so that wouldn’t seem like I was leaving. The front of the house was the road and we were instructed to not go out on the street. And directly behind the house was the woods and I was afraid to go there by myself. So the pasture in the side yard was perfect. I must admit I became aware of being anxious the moment I came up with this idea and the anxiety increased as I walked about 200 feet from the house. And then it hit me. What am I doing? The house looked so much smaller already. Was I really ready to leave? I felt so needy and powerless. At that moment I realized this was a “stupid” decision. I sat sideways, not towards the house and not away from the house. I think it was symbolic of my ambivalence.

My mom appeared at the second story window, smiling. Now that made me mad. “I thought to myself, “Can’t you see I’m running away.” And I folded my arms and turned my back to her. She asks, “are you mad at me?” I replied, “yes!” I can’t, for the life of me, remember why, but she goes on saying, “why don’t you come back inside so we can talk this over. You need to tell me what I did that made you so mad that you’d leave here before you were all grown up.” There was a part of me that wanted to jump up and run into the house and pretend I never did this. But I also remember thinking that I don’t want to be in too much of a hurry to return. I want her to think I’m really leaving and never looking back. So, I just sat there, hoping she would ask me again. Then it came to me, if I can get her to ask me three times, that means she really does miss me, would miss me if I was totally gone and wants me back. Then, maybe I could give her a second chance, but only if she asks me three times. That’s what a good son does, gives his parents lots of chances to make up for all their mistakes. Well, she asked me a second time saying she’d give me a cookie if I came back. And I thought, “Ha. It’ll take more than a cookie.” This is getting good. I already had my snack. And it’s not too long until dinner. So, I crossed my arms and turned my back to her a second time. And she followed with offering more goodies. “How about some kool-aid to go with that cookie? Would that get you to come in and tell me what’s wrong?” I was beginning to realize how difficult it was to say “no” to your mother over and over. And even though there was a part of me saying, “hold-out!,” there was that other part that saw my beautiful, loving, smiling mother in the window and I wanted to skip on home into her arms. Makes me think of the biblical “prodigal son” story. Everyone experiences it, boys and girls and it has to start somewhere. Being a prodigal son started for me in sideyard of the pasture with my “Lone Ranger” lunchbox, my clean underwear and my mother in the second story window of our farmhouse.

Mother’s Day: A Song for the Heart

Mom sang all the time! And when she wasn’t singing she was doing what I call a hum-whistle. If she was doing dishes, laundry or any assortment of household chores that required more muscle and air, that’s when the hum-whistle would do. A hum-whistle sounds very much like air pushing through one’s lips but you can recognize the tune. I loved hearing my mom hum-whistle or sing. When she did sing, she loved to give the melody to someone else so she could harmonize. Families used to sing for their own entertainment, whether it was around the family piano or just a cappella. We didn’t have a piano or anyone who knew how to play, so a cappella was our tradition. Mom’s parents both sang. The folklore says that Grandma Sylves had a beautiful, almost operatic soprano voice and she sang at various churches when she was a younger lady. Grandpap Sylves, Big Jim, sang for his own amusement and the amusement of his children and grandchildren. As children, we never heard our grandmother sing, but we listened to and sang with our grandfather all the time. He knew all sorts of ditties including, Ol’ Dan Tucker, The Preacher and the Bear, Sally Dear, K-K-Katie, Ja-Da, Ja-Da, 5’2 Eyes of Blue and on and on. As I got older, I became aware of how just much singing we did as a family when compared to others and this was most apparent at the wakes that followed the funerals of family. As an extended family, we’d sing everything and one family member or another would take the lead on a song. We’d start out with all the funny ditties we all knew and loved and then gradually gravitated to the spirituals and hymns that meant so much. Mom loved spirituals, so she taught us “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel,” “Wade in the Water,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Nobody Knows the Trouble I See,” “Steal Away” to name a few. But she also loved gospels and hymns as well. So, “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” “In the Garden,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” are just a sample. By the time we left the wake, tummies full and spirits lifted, we felt soothed and full in ways that are not easily explained. To follow the singing in the family a little further, in the later portion of winter and early Spring of 1985, my mom’s Aunt Beulah was dying of emphysema. Mom came back from California where she was living to help in Aunt Beulah’s care as she was a licensed practical nurse. And Mom cared for her at the hospital and at Aunt Beulah’s home. Aunt Beulah passed in April. And of course we had the wake. As we were given to do, we all sang our hearts out between heaping plates of food. At a certain point, Mom comments, “Ah-h-h-h my. This does my heart good. When I go, I hope the Lord sends me out singing, just like that!” None of us thought anything of the comment other than to think about how mom was reflecting on the fullness of her spirit. Five months later and just after a wonderful visit that my wife and children had made to California to see my mom and dad, I received a phone call from my brother, Dan. He called to tell me that the doctor told him to call everyone in the family and let them know that Mom was dying and she didn’t have much time left. In fact, we needed to get on a plane immediately if we wanted to see her before she died. Of course, I could not believe it. I called the doctor the next morning and what Dan had said was true. She had contracted some rare blood disease and all her organs were shutting down. So, all the siblings, Diane, Jim and myself took the next plane we could get on that same day and joined Dan, Tammy and our dad at the hospital. I had my first opportunity to see Mom and she was already on a respirator, jaundiced and swollen and unconscious. We all prayed together but I knew it wouldn’t be long. As I stood in the ICU with my mom, I instinctively began to stroke her hair just above her forehead. Now this sounds like a very caring gesture until you recall that my mom hated anyone to stroke her hair. She said in years past that it felt annoying when people did it and it was not soothing to her the way people intended it. Well, in the seriousness of the moment, I forgot about this idiosyncrasy. My perception of her is that she was unconscious, but as I stroked her forehead with my hand, all of a sudden she shakes her head as if to tell me to “Stop it!” Here is my mom on her deathbed and she musters up what little strength she has to communicate to me to stop engaging in her version of Chinese water torture. This must say something about how little moments of humor can be embedded even in tragic circumstances. What this experience did was clue me into my mom being more aware than I had thought. I wanted to do something to soothe her and comfort her. And then I remembered what she had said at Aunt Beulah’s wake. And I began to sing to her. I worked my way through song after song after song all of which were spirituals and hymns. I sang the spiritual “Steal Away” very slow and deliberate.

Steal Away, Steal Away,

Steal Away to Jesus,

Steal Away, Steal Away Home,

I ain’t got long to stay here.”

My Lord calls me,

He calls me by the thunder,

De trumpet sounds within-a my soul,

I ain’t got long to stay here.

Steal Away, Steal Away,

Steal Away to Jesus,

Steal Away, Steal Away Home,

I ain’t got long to stay here.”

Occasionally, when I sang, a tear would trickle down from her eye following the crease between her nose and cheek. When these few tears came, I thought to myself, some of this was getting through.

A spiritual is such a powerful expression of the deep groans for pain we feel. This was my mom’s pain at leaving this world so early at 54 years of age, confused by what was happening and not wanting to abandon or be abandoned by all those that love her. It also captured my groans as I prepared to let go of a deep connection, a connection of sustenance.

Mom passed away not too long afterwards. I believe that even though her lips didn’t move and voice could not be audibly heard, she sang with me.

Our family singing doesn’t end there. Of course, I sang to my children and included many of the same ditties my Grandpap and mom sang to us. I’ve sang solos at weddings and churches and participated in church choirs. When I successfully defended my dissertation at the University of Southern California in November of 1995, when I learned of my passing, I sang a cappella to my committee. I sang “Ol’ Dan Tucker” in memory of my grandfather and the Spiritual “Wade in the Water,” to acknowledge my mom and our faith heritage. This past year the chair of my dissertation committee, who still happens to be at USC, communicated to me in an e-mail, “I still recall that yours is the only dissertation defense at which ended with a song.”

I sing every day, maybe not a hum-whistle but a song nonetheless, sometimes a ditty and other times a spiritual or hymn. Thank you, mom!

Bathing in Praise: Mother’s Day Thoughts

Well, it’s coming up on Mother’s Day and I want to reflect about my mom. I’m sure most people feel strongly about their mothers, but I’m here to tell you there was none better. Ruthie Sylves had a way of exuding love and acceptance that made even the worst days tolerable. Mom was the eternal optimist. She passed a “can do” spirit to each of her children in a way that each of her children could hear it. I can still hear her telling me to bend over to give her a hug and kissing me on my cheek, while speaking into my ear how proud she was of me. Mom’s words of affirmation were so-o substantive. They had a luscious quality. The only thing that comes close sensually is taking a warm shower on a cold morning. The water hits in just such a way that you feel like cooing. And you don’t want to come out from it. Her positive words, genuine and heartfelt, were every bit as soothing as her touch. What I have found different than the shower metaphor is that the words stick. I can still hear and feel those words. And I can call on those when the world says something else to me. Mom has been gone almost 25 years. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. A good portion of the substance of who I am as a person, the passion I have to connect with people comes from this wonderful woman! Stay tuned.

FOOTBALL: Coaches and Scumbags PART IV

Without coaches, most athletes would never advance their skill level beyond the natural talent they were born with. At the ideal end, football coaches are wonderful mentors who use their love of the game to teach beyond the heightened skill level and excellent team play to broader lessons about life. And part of that process is teaching boys about how to subdue an opponent, whether individually or as a team. But this is where I think coaching reveals its dark side. From my perspective, there is a thin line between a pep talk and a tirade. And many coaches do not know the difference. A pep talk is a kind of Knute Rockne inspirational speech that taps into the emotional level of a player enhancing his determination for a skilled performance. A tirade is an attempt to shame a player through belittling remarks and humiliation in an effort to improve his performance. It’s used in instances where the player is being physically beaten by his opponent or in those instances where the coach deems the player as not aggressive enough in his overall play. When coaches go from a pep talk to resorting to a tirade, they become scumbags in my estimation. And they actually are unaware how for most players it negatively impacts their play as well as the perception the player has about the coach. It is the rare player that responds to this form of cruel encouragement with an improved performance. (There is one guy that does seem to get benefit from the tirade. Guys who have had older brothers that beat on them unmercifully. The little brother takes it only so long, then gets mad and retaliates.) And in the end, the player reflects on the coach in lesser terms. The coach is now seen negatively as a person. And when the boy goes to young man and adult, he remembers these experiences even more negatively than when he first experienced it.

My experiences early on were more the Knute Rockne type. I do not recall a coach in the Termites, Mighty-Mites or Midgets relating to boys on this level. They would try to get us to be more aggressive, but never by doing a character assassination in front of the whole team. They might smack us on the helmet or give us a kick in the proverbial pants and tell us they know we can play better, but it never was contempt for who we were as ballplayers or people. My first experience with a Scumbag was in Junior High. It was half-time in a game we were losing and playing poorly. Our head coach singles me out and says something like this. “Matta, what the f— do you think you’re doing out there! You are such a disgrace and embarrassment to Scott High football. I don’t know why you even suit up for this game. You’re such a f—ing loser! Oh, your coaches (from last year) said, ‘wait til you see Matta.’ What a bunch of bullshit! I don’t see it! We’ve wasted a uniform on you! I’ve seen girls play better!” The words are one thing, but the guy is literally foaming at the mouth, screaming this venom, looking like he’s going to have the vein in his neck explode and his eyes are as hateful as one can imagine. I know now that he was trying to light a fire under me and this team. I think I even understood that at the time. But it had just the opposite effect. And I never saw that coach in the same way after that. Instead of infusing me with energy and ethusiasm to enhance my performance, I felt as limp as a wet blanket and went through the motions of the game. As a 13 year old, I found myself questioning my worth as a player and person. I became so full of anger at the coach and self-loathing for my poor performance, I decided to do what any self-respecting ballplayer the next game. And, no, it was not redouble my efforts to improve my performance. I feigned illness and stayed home the day of the game the following week. I don’t know how I discovered this, but if you take a rubber band and chew on it, it will make your glands swell. I could make them swell right nicely. I’d tell my mom I didn’t feel well and just like that, I’d have the day off. It worked beautifully. The coach even called the house to see why I wasn’t at school pleading with my mom that if I could get in within the next 30 minutes I could still catch the bus and play in the game. My mom was a wonderful mother and stood her ground. “He’s sick today and I don’t care if you’re playing the McKeesport Little Tigers, he’s staying home.” When I went to practice the following Monday, he just glared at me. But I think he got the message because nothing like that ever happened again. He did use that tactic with other players throughout the year, but not on me.

Now contrast the negative from one of my coaching heroes. Fran Rogel was my high school football coach. He happened to be an All-American at Penn State and played fullback for the Pittsburgh Steelers playing in the pro-bowl in 1954. Coach Rogel could get fired up like any coach, but I always felt he was in my corner, even if he benched me for a bonehead play. He’d say things like, “Get your head in the game, Matta!” Of course I would try to plead my case saying, “I thought….” And Coach Rogel would interrupt me saying, “I thought took a shit and died. Don’t give me that. Come on’ I expect more from you. We’ve been working on this play for weeks. If you don’t make that f—ing block the whole play explodes. Run it again!” There is a challenge and some disappointment expressed here but without the shaming. Most of us would have taken a bullet for Coach Rogel. He would get angry, but you always felt valued. He was that positive and influential.

I’ve mentioned that I teach Human Growth & Development classes at Mercyhurst College. We use my book, “The Voices of Men” to talk about the purpose of tirades in toughening a boy on his journey to become a man. But the students tell me in class and in their reaction papers that this Scumbag behavior continues. And it is not limited to football, or sports generally, but can be found in music, dance and theater.

It’s interesting the liberties adults take with children and young people in an effort to teach a skill. If they only knew what damage it does to the person to say nothing of how little positive effect it has on performance, maybe coaches (or dance teachers, band and theater directors) wouldn’t resort to such extremes. We’re in the 21^st century. I expect more.

FOOTBALL: Termites, Mighty-Mites, Tongues and Tackles PART III

I do not recall the first time I donned a football helmet and the wonderful gear that comes with playing little-gridder ball. I do recall wearing it though. The equipment included a male girdle to protect the hips, thigh pads and knee-pads that went into the pants, shoulder pads and cleats. This was as close to a uniform for battle that a boy would ever come. It was a thing of beauty and glory! Also, there was a distinct smell and feel to this time of year. It was the fragrance of piles and piles of yellow and red leaves combined with a cool crispness in the autumn air. And, invariably, someone was raking and burning them outside, which intensified that fragrance. It makes me think of the movie Apocalypse Now where Robert Duvall comments that he loves the smell of napalm in the morning. When I got a whiff of that smell, football was in the air.

Well, of course the season started with practices usually no later than mid-August. And coaches offered all sorts of warnings to prevent injuries, such as “lead with your body, not with your head! Make sure your chinstrap is buttoned! Get rid of your gum!” The last one made no sense to me, which is not unusual for my age. The coaches could see we all had bubble gum in our mouths and warned all of us about how we might bite our tongue. After his speech, the coach looked directly at me and instructed me to get rid of my gum. I feigned like I had but didn’t. Shortly after, we started a practice drill and I was asked to carry the ball and a defender hit me low and wrapped his arms around my calves. I went to my knees first, followed by my stomach and then my chin. When my chin hit the ground, my teeth bit into my tongue right where I was chewing the gum. Sure enough, I ended up in the emergency room with a small chunk of my tongue missing. When the coach saw blood coming out of my mouth, he looked inside and mentioned that a chunk was missing. Instinctively, I started looking around on the ground the way someone looks for a contact lens. I couldn’t find the chunk, but no matter. Off to the emergency room I went. I was embarrassed but with this little uniform on, people treated me like they were getting me ready to receive a “Purple Heart.” The doctor stitched it up with two stitches and without a local anesthetic. I’ll spare you what it felt like. But if I put my tongue out far enough almost 45 years later, you can still see the scar. It seemed strange to be in an emergency room for a mouth injury due to playing football, but this was before plastic mouthguards. Heck, I don’t remember my first practice helmet having a facemask, although we got helmets with facemasks for the actual games.

I was a middle linebacker and fullback that first year and started both ways. I must have played decently that first year, because I do have fond memories of my father taking me on occasion to the Whippy Dip or Dairy Queen below Hawkins Avenue and the tracks on Fourth street for milkshakes. He was of the mindset that milkshakes were good for your bones and strength and who was I to argue with him. Bring it on! As many as I could get! There were three teams in our division of 8 and 9 year olds. This division was called the “Termites.” There was the Red team, Green team and Yellow team. The Green team was stacked with the best players from the three wards that made up the borough of North Braddock. I know there is usually an effort on the part of the coaches to create equity, but for whatever reason it wasn’t there. I was on the worst of the three teams, the Read team. But as a nine-year old on offense, I held my own and managed to run well, rarely fumbled and could drag more than a few players along. On defense was where I shined, capable of anticipating the snap count and blitzing in to take down the quarterback or halfback just as he was receiving the ball. My big drawback has always been that I am slow, have always been slow and will always be slow. But it is strange, I was slow, but very quick. I could get anybody if it was within five yards. I had great peripheral vision and field vision. Occasionally, I would get taken in by a bootleg, a double reverse or fake handoff, but they were rare.

The following year, I played with the 10 and 11 year olds on the “Mighty-Mites.” I went from starting the prior year to seeing limited action at fullback. They had better players to run the ball. But I still started at middle-linebacker. There are a couple of experiences that season that stood out in my memory. One had to do with a practice where a very, very large defender was to tackle me as I try to run through him. They place dummies on the left and right to keep the players from trying to skirt around the defender. And for this practice, my mother’s first cousin, my Great Aunt Beulah’s son, “Nuffy” was helping out as an assistant coach with the team. As we line up, the defender smiles at me as if to say, “You are mine!” Well Nuffy hands me the ball and I run at the humongous defender. Now, I was no smallfry, but this kid was definitely eating his Wheaties and whatever else he could get his hands on. I thought to myself, “this guy is going to kill me!” Instinctively, just before we made contact, I jumped straight up in the air, straight up. You must remember, if a person is slow chances are they can’t jump either. And without thinking I come back down to the ground looking in the direction I’m running and the defender is gone. As my feet hit the ground I run forward and turn back to see what happened. The coaching staff are laughing. I mean, they are bent over, laughing with tears in their eyes. Apparently, when I jumped up, the defender at that time tried to move in on me very low and he moved so quickly he went under me completely and never touched me. When I came back to where everyone was standing, the coaches said they were laughing at the grimaced look of fear on my face when I jumped and the smile of satisfaction tied to the fact that I pulled it off. They made me run it again and told me not to jump. “Just go through him, don’t be afraid!” Nuffy still tells the story and shakes his head.

The second recollection that stands out was an away game against Lower Burrell. I remember one play that stands out where the quarterback fakes a handoff to the halfback going to my right but the quarterback keeps the ball and bootlegs to the left as I am blitzing. Given the blitz, I didn’t bite on the fake and stayed right with the quarterback. I remember him being just out of my reach as I ran, leaning with my arms dangling, hands reaching and grasping. Now of course the quarterback was faster than me, but I was managing to stay just behind him. And it became clear, very quickly that I was the only one who did not go with the play fake and it was a foot race between this Lower Burrell quarterback and me. As I chased him following him out into the flat, he began to turn upfield and he was beginning to put more space between the both of us. I had myself in a full sprint and could not close on him. Just then, I heard my dad yell, “dive, dive!” They say that babies and children can distinguish the calls of their parents in the presence of other adults and even when the noise level is rather high. Well, no one has ever heard my dad yell. He could bellow above most crowds and his voice was clear and distinct. At the moment I heard him holler, “dive, dive,” I did exactly that. I dove and stretched out my arms and hands and caught the heels and shoelaces of the quarterback. As he was thrown off stride by my reach, I found myself grabbing both of his feet. My body was completely stretched out and at this point, his body was the same. In that moment our bodies were a straight line parallel to the ground. We hit the ground hard and I prevented the touchdown. This was the only classic shoe-string tackle I would ever make. Everyone cheered after the play on both sides of the stadium as every football lover thrills to see a great play! It was particularly satisfying to have the coaches from the other team single me out when we walked through the handshake ritual to signify good sportsmanship after the game was over. My dad grinned from ear to ear. And I think I got a whole milkshake for that one play.

FOOTBALL: John Henry & Paul Bunyan in cleats! Part II

As a Christian, I’m clear about how Jesus saved me. And I know this is going to sound real strange, but football saved me in the world of my childhood and adolescence. Salvation in the first instance is on a spiritual level that translates into a life lived by the Golden Rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated. In the second instance, it was about survival at the most primitive level. Take him out by any means necessary. Now, don’t get me wrong. When I make the statement that, “football is masculinity making at its finest,” in the Part I post, it has to do with how most cultures toughen boys in their journey from boyhood to manhood. Toughening is a time of preparation so as the boy becomes a man, he will be able to withstand the harshness of life. When labor laws took urban children out of the workforce, older men probably looked for other ways to accomplish this process. Contact sports like football would be one example. And football did this for me. But it’s interesting how you can participate in an activity and the effects perseverate into other contexts. That’s where football as salvation comes in. I’ve already established that I was a sensitive boy and that means I was not much of a fighter. To tell the truth, I hated fighting. When we moved to the city from the country, fighting was almost a daily occurrence. I may not have been in a fight every day, but it seemed like I witnessed one. And in the culture of southwestern Pennsylvania, children and adolescents who play football are seen differently than others that do not. There’s an instant celebrity status offered to the child for his willingness to make this particular journey into toughness. It was akin to the great American mythical figures like John Henry the steel-driver competing with the steam-powered hammer or Paul Bunyan taking out a forest with one swing of his mighty ax. Physical prowess of mythical proportions could be seen in the game of football. “Oh, he plays football!” And it’s said with a kind of hush of admiration. Old men, middle-age men, guys just out of high school would grin at you, pat you on the back, buy you chips and a soda when you happened to be at the bar with your father. The supreme valuing of this sport is why I think it was woven into the fabric of masculinity making there. I didn’t understand it, but took full advantage of it. “How about another bag of chips, heh?” As soon as I started playing football and actually was decent at it, my respect with kids in the neighborhood went up. There was this strange correlation that the other boys made, which says “if this guy is good at a contact sport, you definitely don’t want to pick a fight with him. He’ll kick your ass!” Now that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have fights along the way, but as my football career continued and I continued raise my skill level thereby excelling, the physical challenges at school and in the neighborhood dropped considerably. You have to remember in a tough neighborhood, boys were very adept at sizing up not only the physical stature of one another, they could tell you where they were in the pecking order of life. “Ah, I could kick the shit out of Carl, Randy and Timmy, but I wouldn’t want to mess with Keith, Billy or T.J.” I was viewed as having a higher position on the totem pole of pugilistic physicality than was the case. I don’t think I would have been at the bottom, but definitely in the lower half. So, I am indebted to this game in ways that many guys are not. Oh, by the way, if I did have an issue with someone who was threatening me and they happened to play football either on the team or in a pick-up game on the street, that’s how I made sure I kept my place in the boys pecking order. A solid hit that knocked the wind out of a challenging boy could do wonders for your reputation. And kids would talk about it for weeks. And there’s nothing like intentionally, accidentally block-bumping (I just made the word up. But you get the picture.) someone that results in a skid on the brick street where we live. It gives the challenger a whole different perspective on life. And for the most part I was the bumper and my rivals were the bumpees!

FOOTBALL: Masculinity making at its finest! PART I

That is a bit of an overstatement, but I do want you to know that I don’t think there is any sport or activity that encompasses the processes of making a boy into a man like football. It’s socially sanctioned violence. If you blew somebody up with a trap block, rode the quarterback to the ground like a cowboy riding down a steer, blindsided a defender on his way to get the kickoff return specialist, everyone cheers! There is contact in hockey, basketball and soccer but not like in football. In football, the contact is in EVERY play! The only really fair comparison is wrestling, but you still don’t have the space or time to pick up speed and make your body, your self into a missile. So, in football it’s the whole package. But then again, I’m biased.

In football, guys played with other guys and girls were not permitted to play because of the concern for their safety. So, it was segregated by gender. The message is “men play violent games and women do not!” But the violence is rule bound to provide a modicum of safety. When I was a kid, there were only two places that I felt safe, where I grew up. One was the school and that was a “for the most part” experience. The other was on the football field, whether practice or for the games. In a tough neighborhood, you rarely had adults supervising the outdoor play that went on in the streets. So, it is no wonder that it would get out of hand. Bloody noses, broken bones, stitches for cuts were common occurrences. But on the football field, you had coaches watching your every move and even though someone might try to bite your leg under a pile of players after a play, they’d usually only get away with it once. I remember one instance where a coach was trying to match up the teeth marks left in one of the players legs, with the teeth of the guys that happened to be a part of the that play and under the pile! It was crazy!

With a father that was a raging alcoholic, for me, anger, aggression and power displays were associated with men being out of control. On a football field it was very different. You had to channel your aggression and unleash it in short bursts on each play to subdue your opponent. You might get outmuscled, but then you had to figure out how to outmaneuver the more powerful or skilled opponent to make the play or keep him from making it. You would use various angles or gaps or chop blocks or subtle holding the refs couldn’t see. It was finesse as well as power, which seemed more gentlemanly to me. A good portion of the game was instinct, but the more you played, the more a thinking man’s game it became. Another benefit to practice as well as the actual games was how it had a present time orientation. Everything else in one’s life was suspended, while this time together with the team and coaches took center stage. You might be distracted by off-the-field issues, but if you wanted to excel you had to develop the capacity to live in the moment to perform at your best. In the broader culture, the capacity to live in the moment has been lost unless it is after pounding a few brewskies or smoking something funny. But with football, you had to be aware of everything going on to complete your assignment and move the team forward. What a sensation!

Why blog? The Beauty and Power of Storytelling!

When my siblings and I were small, our mother gave us a great gift! She breathed the belief in us that we were wonderful people and not to ever let anyone tell you any different. We were taught that we were not only wonderful, but special. The challenge offered to us by our mom and our Christian faith was to live a life worthy of those special gifts and talents God had entrusted to us. This beautifully lived life, regardless of its uncleanliness, becomes one’s story or to use a Christian word, “testimony.”

This wonderful quality and specialness our mom mentioned was not limited to her own children but she believed found in all children and people. And if this is the case, then everyone has stories. From this perspective, one’s life is and becomes the most fascinating story of all, especially if we’re willing to contemplate it and shape the relevant and not so relevant moments for meaning-making purposes.

For the storyteller, the telling validates the reality of lived experience and fosters meaning making and poignancy. So, everyone’s life is a testimony. There are so many powerful stories out there in the real “honest-to-God” lives of “extra” ordinary folks. And being a mentor of sorts who likes to point the way through the telling of my own stories, I want to encourage my readers to write and speak their own stories. So, tell your story!

So, what is a man?

So, what is a man? The following excerpt is from an interview I did with a 45 year old Amish blacksmith for my book, “The Voices of Men.” If you listen to this man’s language you hear warmth, empathy and compassion throughout. He wants to be manly, but not at the expense of his sensitivity to others. He recognizes that toughness comes with a price. The price is a loss of awareness of the intrapersonal self. So, a guy becomes detached from his own personal thoughts and feelings. And from my opinion, in the name of toughness, the man is diminished. When men are asked what they are feeling or thinking and they say they don’t know. They REALLY don’t know. Hopefully, we are socializing our boys to become men who can be tough enough to withstand the hardships of life, but soft enough to be great husbands and fathers as well. So, read and enjoy!

ABRAHAM: What is a man? I guess I had to think that a man is something or someone that’s much more than just a macho figure with hair on his chest and big bulging biceps. That doesn’t make a man. A man is just that, he’s a man. Mere man created by God, but still something precious in the eyes of God. So therefore, not only just a man, something special. But when he gets away from the fact that he thinks himself something special, then he better be careful. A man is someone that takes time to enjoy the beauty of a rainbow. Or maybe with rough, calloused hands pick up a rose and feel the velvetness of a rose and yet gentle. And realizing that he must take time for the things in life that are important. To love his wife more than himself, to give time to his children when they need it. A man thinks of others before himself and a man always gives God glory for everything and looks to God for all strength. And when decisions are ahead in his life then God is the one whose advice he seeks first. And a man is never afraid to say he’s sorry. And last of all, but not least because I could go on and on, but it takes a man to cry. And I’m not saying that because I have to cry. And I guess the reason that this stands out so clear to me is that as a little boy I thought that when I would grow up you would leave so much behind you, you would become a man. And then whatever you faced in life you would be able to handle because you were big and you’d be strong. Because that’s the way I always thought that daddy could do. But now that I’m a man, so to speak, I realize that being a man is not something that becomes formed and stays as such, perfect in its form; it’s something that has to be nurtured and nursed each day. It’s something that has to keep growing…Some days I’m a man, some days I want them to think I am. And I think I have to keep ahold of being a little boy just enough so that when I look at my little boys I understand what they’re feeling. When I’m with the youth, I still feel how they do. I still feel the pain of growing up. And that’s all part of being a man to me. And maybe I lied. Realizing that I’m a daddy now, married, a married man so to speak, a husband, but yet feeling so small sometimes. So alone.

Oh, by the way, there is more where that came from. You can order the “The Voices of Men” on amazon.com. I use it with my Human Growth classes at Mercyhurst College to teach about the “mystery of masculinity” in gender role development.

The “Bad Brother” Stories: Part III “Chiller Theater”

Saturday nights in our house on Middle Street was always the same. Channel 11 had a double feature of horror movies and the show was called Chiller Theater. It was hosted by Chilly Billy Cardilly. He even had a cameo in George Romero’s original “Night of the Living Dead.” This became part of the Saturday night ritual for the brothers in our household. The movies would begin right after the 11 o’clock local news and we’d be up til 2:30am or until we fell asleep. This became such a popular part of our lives that we ordered monster posters for our bedroom. You’d come into our room and there you’d find Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3’ by 4’ black and white posters. I don’t know if you realize how large they were, but there’s something about having Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff staring at you all the time that can be pretty freaky for a kid. My personal favorite were the Godzilla movies. And the absolute favorite movie was King Kong vs. Godzilla. We loved having these movies scare the begeebers out of us. Dan was always the tough guy except for when he read “The Exorcist.” He came into the room in the middle of the night saying, “Buzz, wake up. Wake up. You gotta stay up with me. I just finished the Exorcist.” He’s saying this as he clutches a Bible to his chest. He was definitely in that wonderful state of “panic & fear” that was what we wanted. Jim on the other hand was the hider. When a scary part came on, he’d hide behind the couch and peek out to see when it was over. Now of course the tradition usually included some sort of food including but not limited to all sorts of soda along with chips, pretzels, snowballs, candybars and anything else we could get our hands on. If we were desperate we’d clean out the cereal, which drove our parents nuts. Everytime they went to get a bowl of cereal, we had eaten everything EXCEPT Corn Flakes. So, around an hour into the movie we would all agree that we had to go to the bathroom. And the movie was usually to a place where the suspense and tension was starting to build. We’d agree to go to the bathroom together. When the boys were younger, they’d make me hold their hands. So, up the stairs the three of us would go holding one another’s hands. We’d all go in together and if there was a way to go so we could continue holding one another’s hands we would have figured it out. But, so we didn’t spray the entire bathroom, we let go of one another’s hand. Brothers peeing together is interesting. We stood around the same toilet bowl together and we’d criss-cross the streams of urine playfully. Visually, you’d see your stream and the intersections of two others. It makes me think of the Three Musketeers, “All for one and one for all!” Yeah! Well, being the older brother, I would usually finish first and I would carefully zip up my trousers, turn slowly and then click off the bathroom light while the brothers are still going. And to top it off, I’d run down the stairs leaving the two brothers alone in the bathroom finishing their business. As I’m doing this, they would plead with me, “Buzz, no. don’t go downstairs.” And then they’d scream. I would scamper down the stairs two at a time gleeful and smiling that I had got one over on them. They would come down all serious and frightened. it was usually Dan that would say to me. “That wasn’t funny. It’s not o.k. to scare us that way. What if you were a little brother and we left you up there all alone. You wouldn’t like it.” But I loved it! They’d settle back in and if they were particularly distressed, I’d apologize knowing I would get them the next time. Yeah, I was a “bad brothuh!”