Snow Day

Snow Day!

When it snows, when the weather is really bad, teachers get the day off. Of course we have to make the day up in June but who doesn’t want to sleep in on a bitter, cold, January morning? This past Wednesday I was outside shoveling the snow; fully invigorated by the cold air and the exercise. I was thinking about how much I love to shovel snow. It’s mindless, and that’s why I love it. In this frenetic life, I can turn my brain off for 45 minutes and just move mounds of white powder.

Whenever my neighbors see me shoveling the snow, by hand, they invariably feel charitable. Nicely, they offer to use whatever machinery they have to help me out. Sensitive to being less than gracious I say, “Thanks anyway Doctor Parker, I like to do it.” I get the obligatory No Really look and I say, “I do, it’s a great workout.”

As Doc Parker pulled away from my driveway this past Wednesday I had to laugh. My thoughts turned to all of the really simple things, that I really enjoy. I thought it would be cool to start a conversation, in these tough times, about little things in life that we could take a little time to notice… Simple things that could help put a smile on our faces as we face another day…

Snooze alarm
A hot shower
The Local Library-Thank you Ben Franklin!
New book smell
A roaring fire in the fireplace
Thin crust pizza
A walk in the woods
A bike ride
Cheeseburger with lettuce tomato and onion

Irish Pubs
Sledding
Scan/search on your car radio
Cruise control
The sound of kids laughing
Camping Out
Newspaper delivery (NY Times is $17.60 per month for teachers!)
Cheese cake!
Jimmy Buffet tunes and a cold mug of beer

Good Friends

I would love to go on but it's your turn...I hope the Comments Box is working....Would love to hear from you...and again, thanks for reading, Jim Spinner

Seamus and Me

A recent ad for the movie Marley & Me says, "Still tugging at America's Heart." That title could not be more appropriate for my life.

In the Spinner family we have all been avoiding going to see Marley & Me. Kira, my wife, and I know it will be too tough for the family to watch right now. This past May, we mourned the loss of Seamus, our big lummox of a yellow lab.

***We now have another yellow lab puppy, McGee. A birthday gift for Kira's 40th from her Dad's family, and he looks eerily like Seamus. He's just the cutest thing. And I go through the motions with him, I give the ball a quick toss across the lawn occasionally but my heart isn't in it. And I feel awful. I am nice to the little guy but try as I may, my heart is still closed to this little ball of fur. They say that writing can be cathartic. Maybe in writing about Seamus, I'll be able to let the big guy go.

***"He was our first son." That's what my wife and I say. Very early in our marriage, Kira called me from work, "My friend Ann can get us a dog! A yellow lab just like we want! And he's free!" My Spinner sense started tingling. How many times had we gotten a dog during my childhood and my father would say, "She's a pure breed she just doesn't have papers." I spent most of my childhood, on every walk around the neighborhood hearing, "What kind of dog is that?" My response would be, "Well we were told she's mostly Springer Spaniel but we don't have papers." As soon as Kira said free dog I said, "No, I don't want some knock-off dog. I want a pure bred, barrel-chested, put his picture on the Labrador Retriever calendar dog." Kira countered with, "Beans was a free mutt and look how much you loved the Beans." This was true, I loved Jelly Beans, the Spinner family dog. I waivered, "But we just got married. We like to ski and travel, a dog is going to cramp our style." With an only-child's persistence Kira was not done..."Come on it wil be OUR dog. For the first time in your life it will be YOUR dog."

***We drove out to a small farm in Eastern Pennsylvania. It wasn't exactly "Deliverance" but I wouldn't be surprised if they had a copy of it on VHS. The mother dog was tied up to a stake in the backyard, inches away from a styrofoam replica of a deer with arrows sticking out of it. We went into the basement to look at the litter. I told the woman in the dirty, Simpsons t-shirt that we wanted a male. She gave me the three males and we headed outside. I put all three on my chest while I laid on the grass. One little guy inched his way up and nibbled on my ear and I said, "That's my guy." I often think of the life we had with Seamus and he had with us and it all came down to that moment. Little guy didn't know how close he was to living with pin-cushion Bambi.

***Ann dropped Seamus off Spring of 1996. We fawned over the little guy from the minute we got him. We bought him toys. We took him to the park nightly. I tossed that tennis ball to him when it was bigger than his head. Kira thought we had ourselves a gifted pup. She was impressed with my training abilities. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was in his DNA. We took photos of things like "Seamus's first swim." It was at the foot of Mount Washington and again Kira thought he was some kind of genius, "Oh look at him Jim! He knows how to swim already!!!" Again, the DNA thing.

***We spoiled him. We'd go out for soft-serve ice cream and we'd buy him his own cup of vanilla. Because of my boy, we took up hiking. We bought trail books and most weekends you'd find us, two dorks with our L.L. Bean fanny packs heading into the woods.

***We got Seamus early in my teaching career. I would tell my students stories of Seamus. Eventually my 7th graders, in their sing-song voices would say, "Everybody Loves Seamus!" whenever I would say that line in one of my stories. It became part of the give-and-take between us. Running into some of my former students today, now recent college graduates, updating them on my life I have to tell them, "Sadly, Seamus passed away."

***When we knew we were bringing Nicholas, our real first born, home from the hospital; we treated Seamus as if he might be a jealous older brother. The night Nick was born I took home that little hospital-issue, blue hat and I let Seamus sniff it. I let him sleep with it so he would feel close to the baby. Seamus was great with Nick, a lot of sniffing and curiousity. Once, just once, he growled at the baby. I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and said, "Zero tolerance for that Seamus, zero. I will pack you off to the farm so fast if you ever do that again." Three boys later and countless eye pokings, tail pullings and Seamus never uttered another aggressive sound to any of my boys. The pictures we have of him that I like the most are of my boys using Seamus as a pillow as they read in front of the fire on the living room floor.

***Seamus did everything with us. He was a member of the family. The front seat of my car was so covered with dog hair it was never an option if we were deciding whose car to take. I can hear Adam Brutting, one of my colleagues, "Can't take Spinner's car it's got Seamus hair all over the front seat." God I loved riding with him in the car, him looking out the windshield, taking it all in like he was a person. I'd pet him and talk to him. He was my buddy. Man's best friend.

***The average labrador lives about 10 years or so. Seamus was a beast, he was in awesome shape until about the age of 10. Then it came on quick. He got arthritis in his front shoulders. He was a gamer though, he'd swim all day in the lake up in the Adirondacks but then he'd pay the price. Kind of like me after playing hoops on Monday nights. At some point the vet recommended we get a puppy to perk him up. A few Christmases ago I brought home Holly, a black lab puppy. That worked for a while. Seamus got another good year and a half or so. But the end came quickly.

***One afternoon I was tossing the tennis ball for Holly on the front lawn. Seamus lumbered down off his sunny spot on the porch. He looked up at me to toss him the ball. I knew that Holly would be too quick so I had to get a second ball. I tossed the first one and she zipped after it. Then I soft-tossed the second ball about 30 feet or so. Seamus lurched, caught his hip or something and shot me a look that I could only categorize as fear. I made a joke,"Come on old man, can't cut the mustard." He stared at me, imploring me to go get the ball. 12 and a half years of faithfully fetching, thousands of balls and sticks, and my Seamus could not go get that ball. I watched him turn tail and head back to the porch. Tearing up, the moment scared me. I thought of Lou Gehrig, the Iron Horse, after all of those years, hanging up his spikes and pinstripes.

***The last day or so was brutal. I got home from work around three. Kira was leaving for the hospital and she said, "Something's wrong with Seamus, he hasn't moved all day." I took one look at him and realized he must have had some type of a stroke. His head was lolling to the side and he could not see me. He stayed on our living room floor for a few hours. I brought him some food and some drink and he lapped lazily at the water. After I put my boys to bed I carried him outside because I knew he had to go to the bathroom. It was pouring rain and he's standing there, legs splayed, shaking and looking up at me. To see my once proud Seamus, this Ox of a dog reduced to that. If I could have put him down right there I would have, just because I loved him that much. I carried him into the house and he made it through the night.

***The next morning I carried him downstairs and laid him in the driveway. Here's the most amazing thing, he pissed as soon as I laid him down. As bad off as he was, Seamus would NOT pee or poop in the house. That's the kind of dog he was. It was 7 or so on a Saturday morning, I woke my boys up and told them they had to come say good-bye to Seamus. That was some scene the whole family wailing on the driveway around our beloved Seamus.

***I know that in mourning Seamus, looking at him struggle through his final few months that I was mourning our life too. In saying good-bye to my best bud I was saying good-bye to that part of our lives. Perversely, I did the math. If dogs last 10 to 12 years, how many dogs will I have in my lifetime? I can tell you this, no matter how many I have, there won't ever be another Seamus.

"Please Don't Call Me That"

Kira, my wife, has dinner plans with her college friends this weekend. I ask her who is going and she says, “Mara, Lisa, Karen, Kathy, Trish, Ann and Tom.” Don’t ask how Tom got in there, must be a masochist.

Kira asks me who is playing in our upcoming poker game and the list sounds a little different: “Bags, Pots, Murph, Peg-Nose, Weekend, Eric, Big Bill, Lynchy.” I am in the middle of the list and I realize she’s not blinking an eye. Juxtaposed (always like to work that in when I can) with her list, my list sounds odd, childish even. I am 45 years old and I hang out with Potsy, Murph and Peg-nose.

What is it with guys and nicknames? Conversely, for the most part, women don’t do nicknames. I suppose, sometimes there’s the one really cool chick that has a lot of guy friends, and she warrants a nickname. I’ve been working on this piece for a week and I have yet to think of one. It’s been my experience, and I don’t want to disparage all women, I know there are exceptions but female nicknames usually feel forced. Women for the most part can’t be bothered. They probably have better things to do. Guys? We live for it, we try to be the one to plant a nickname on somebody.

It starts at an early age. I would postulate it starts in gym class. The Gym teacher is usually some drill-sergeant type with a crew cut, a gray sweatshirt and a whistle. They like to use last names to take attendance, Smith, Spinner, Sullivan, Tomasi…. During the term, Smith becomes Smitty, Sullivan becomes Sully. And boys take it from there.

We did it on my block even before we could cross the street. Tommy Brennan listened to Hank Williams. So of course, Comper (a mutation of Compietello) called him Clem Cadiddlehopper as befits a “country boy” from Brooklyn. Speed being essential on the mean streets of Brooklyn, we shortened it to Clem. One of the guys in our crew had a slow metabolism, we called him, Bubba. Somehow Bubba turned to Yucca when that Yucca Dew shampoo came out….see, there’s history in them there nicknames.

Now if I’m at any social function, and I hear a cool nickname, I am intrigued to find the story behind it.
“His name is Richie Dunn. Why do you call him Scary?”
“Just why do you call Pete Sigismondi Meat?” Maybe I don’t want to know.
It might be cool to do a collection, "Chicken Soup for the Creatively Monikered Soul."
Let’s take a look at some of my favorite stories…

One of my college buddies at SUNY Buffalo, Jimmy Conroy, always had a knack for hanging the right nickname on someone, like…Raymond Lynch. Steve Lynch’s younger brother, Ray, transferred from the University of Rhode Island after his freshman year. The name Lynchy was already taken in our circle by his brother Steven. Initially we called Ray “Little Lynchy” but we all knew that wouldn’t stick.

Ray is a wise-ass, a quick wit and a pest, he likes to get under people’s skin, in a very funny way. He and Conroy have an interesting relationship. Ray looks at Conroy and says, “What’s the matter pal?” while he imitates Conroy’s various mannerisms (smacking his palms rhythmically on his thighs) and facial tics (pursing and unpursing his lips) and eventually Conroy belts him. Picture Ed Norton and Ralph Kramden. One Saturday, in early September of my sophomore year, we spent the day out on Fargo Field playing softball. Most of us are Irish so at the end of this very sunny day there were some red faces around. That night, down at the campus pub we’re having a few beers and a few laughs. Standing in the circle I notice Conroy, who was red coming out of the womb, staring intently at Ray. Eventually we all turn toward Jim and he says to Ray, in his Long Island, iron worker voice, “Eh, look at your nose. What’s going on with your nose? It’s all red. It’s stuck on the end of your face, like somebody put it there. Kind of like a PEG. Yeh, that’s what it is, it’s a Peg. I am going to call you Peg-Nose.” That was 1982, and Ray Lynch is still Peg-Nose.

It’s best to ignore it if somebody tries to hang a nickname on you that you really don’t want. Guys can smell that fear like sharks and blood. It’s in our DNA, we recognize the facial movement of Please don’t call me that, I really don’t like that name. If you display this face it’s automatically too late. For example…We are at a keg party in some apartment building on Columbus Avenue, Upper West Side. It’s post-college, we’re in our late 20’s so maybe it was more of a “cocktail party.” I am there with pretty much the same group of college buddies whom I mentioned earlier. At some point our circle begins to interact with this group of single women. Introductions are made, “This is Bill and Bill and Jim and Ray.” Trying to sound mature we avoid the nicknames on the initial interaction. As the beers flow and the hijinks ensue, one of the girls, this ditzy blonde keeps hearing us call Billy Murphy, Murph. But she hears it wrong and she asks in her high-pitched voice, “Why does everyone keep calling him Merv?” At this point everything moves in slow motion. Murph, who has been saddled with a relatively cool nickname his entire life (Murph) springs into action. Sharp on the uptake, he recognizes in that instant, in the chemistry of guys and nicknames, that he has to nip this NOW or he might wind up being Merv for the rest of his life. Murph’s mouth is open, he’s slowly mouthing the word, “NOOOOOOOO.”

At the same time Weekend Weizner’s head is turning toward the girl with a huge grin on his face. A grin that says, Yes, there’s years of torture ahead, “What did you say? What did you call him?”

Murph jumps in, frantically, “Nothing, she didn’t say anything. You said Murph! Right? Tell him you said Murph?”

It’s too late. Weekend turns to the rest of us and in unison we yell, “MERV!”
And that’s how you go from Murph to Merv. It happens that fast.

Which brings me to Bill “The Weekend” Weizner, currently my favorite nickname story:

Bill Weizner was still living in Porter Quad his 6th year of college. Most of his friends, Murph, Jack, O’Connell and Big Al had moved off campus. Their off campus house was on Minnesota Ave which was right near the Main Street bars we frequented. That year, a pattern developed. Weizner would pack a duffel bag and crash on their couch for the weekend in order to party. The dorms were a nightmare bus ride away. At some point, Al and the boys could tell what day of the week it was (usually Thursday) by when Weizner showed up at the house. The scene was similar for the first few weeks of school. Big Al, sitting in his favorite recliner, would bare witness and announce, “Must be the Weekend because Weizner’s here!”
Which shortened to “Here comes The Weekend.”
Finally to, “Weekend’s here.”
Bill Weizner is approaching 50 years of age and even my kids call him The Weekend.

Why do guys do this? How come Kira doesn’t have anybody named “Double D” in her crew? I have a few theories. Guys are fairly simple creatures. First, we like to get a laugh, there’s a little class clown in all of us. Second, we’re also competitive, it’s a source of pride to hang the right moniker on somebody, to be part of your group’s lore. Third, it’s how we show affection or admiration. Conroy liked Ray, so he called him Peg-Nose. Kira always says, usually to someone that I am poking fun at, “I can tell that Jim likes you because he makes fun of people he likes.” Women don’t need to use nicknames, they don’t have any problem showing admiration or affection for each other. Guys? We bust balls, we make up names for each other. A nickname says, I dig you man, you are my friend. I like hanging out with you, so I am going to call you this goofy name for the rest of your god-given life!

So, tell me your nickname stories. I’d love to hear them.

Mr. Fux It

Mr. Fux It

Sitting on the couch reading the paper and getting ready to watch some playoff football, I hear the sing-song voice of Kira, my wife.
“Honey. You never fixed the towel rack in the upstairs bathroom. It’s been two weeks! Can you do it today please? Otherwise I am going to call Fred.”

Fred. Why does she have to throw him in my face all the time? Fred’s our handyman, the guy we call when I can’t handle some fix-it job around our 100 year old house. Fred is number 6 on our speed dial. I hate Fred. Particularly that look he gives me. You know the, “I can’t believe you are such a useless member of the man tribe that you can’t even fix a towel rack” look. Occasionally Fred feels so bad, for Kira, that he doesn’t even charge us. How do you think that makes me feel you bastard! Actually Fred’s a good guy but he is a constant reminder of the man I am not.

Why Kira has not called Fred already is beyond me. She’s a psych nurse, doesn’t she recognize avoidance behavior when she sees it? Maybe her patients are rubbing off on her because she must be delusional to think I can actually fix the towel rack. Hasn’t she been paying attention for the past 18 years?

Doesn’t she notice that in order to put together a Lego Star Wars Tie-Fighter with 327 pieces I need to be sequestered in a sound proof room like a scientist working with anthrax? Doesn’t she remember any of my myriad house fixing mishaps?

If she’s been paying attention, as I have, she would know it will go something like this…

I will pick up my brand spanking new tool box, traipse it upstairs and place it beneath the towel rack. I will stare at said rack. Shallow breathing will begin, my left eye and cheek will begin a twitching dance. A movie of my past home improvement failures will scroll across my brain. My favorite is the tightening or maybe loosening of the nuts on my son Charlie’s bedroom radiator to allow for more heat. Apparently, I loosened or tightened too much not only did I have to call a plumber to fix that radiator, we had to call Bob the painter (speed dial number 7) to fix the dining room ceiling where the leaking water ruined the paint job.

Back to the towel rack. Eventually, screwdriver in hand, I will begin to jiggle the rack which is only loose on the right side. A nickel sized hole has developed and I can start to see the screw and the little blue, plastic sleeve that is supposed to keep the towel rack snug in the ancient plaster walls. I will unscrew, jiggle some more, get frustrated, bemoan the fact that I suck at this, get more aggressive with the towel rack, pull really hard and eventually half the towel rack will come loose along with an Australia sized chunk of plaster hanging on the end of the aforementioned screw. Horrified I will stare at the head sized hole in our plaster walls. For a nano-second I will contemplate tearing the rest of the towel rack out of the wall while screaming every four letter word I know. But cooler head prevails. I will realize if I throw a hissy fit, my three boys, Nick, Brian and Charlie will come running. I will be standing there red faced with the remnants of my bathroom in my hands and at my feet. All of the lessons I have been teaching them about patience and hard work will be for naught.

If the past is prologue as they say, this is more than likely what will happen. Why doesn’t she just call Fred?

As usual with any job that requires tools and wood, thoughts turn to my Dad. If only my Dad were around….I can’t believe Kira doesn’t realize with her psychological insight that my Dad is why I am like this. He’s the cause of my baggage and I am not blaming him this is not one of those things but I do see that the man I am now, is interconnected with the man I thought I should be. My frustrations stem from the fact that in our neighborhood you wore your balls on a tool belt. But I knew early on I wasn’t wired like that. Now that I am a homeowner, it would be nice to know my way around that tool box.

I grew up in a blue-collar Brooklyn neighborhood. Jim Spinner Sr. my father was a union carpenter. He was Mr. Fix it. On any given weekend my dad could be found hanging kitchen cabinets or replacing windows, he even built the hockey boards that became our roller hockey rink. As a kid I was surrounded by guys like my dad. When our car was on the fritz, my Dad would park it in front of 434 East 4th Street, pop the hood, do a little reconnaissance, chat a little with the neighborhood dads who would be drawn to the exposed engine of our Chrysler New Yorker. The conversation would go like…

“Jimmy whatcha doin’?”
“Looks like I gotta replace the carburatah.”
“That’s not so bad. I just had to replace the alternatah and the…”
They’d love to spend the day up to their elbows in grease, to rebuild something just for the fun of it but I have to paraphrase these conversations as I was never there. I couldn’t stand that stuff, I had no idea what they were talking about and I didn’t care. My thoughts were captured by the advertising execs and the Wall Street guys walking up our street to catch the F train to and from Manhattan. I knew at an early age that I would wear a white collar. No, my balls would be carried in a brief case.

Now I live in Middlebury, Connecticut, far removed from the Brooklyn of my youth. I can’t even imagine if I had car trouble today, why anyone (read me) would pop the hood? I can picture, if I were to pop the hood Ian, Pat and I would stare uselessly at the engine.
“What do you think is wrong?”
“I don’t know. See any loose wires?”
“Everything looks okay to me. Better call somebody.”

Realistically the only way my car would get fixed would be if they made cars like copy machines. We could use that little electronic picture to tell us exactly what’s wrong with the car. Otherwise, gotta call Sean at Middlebury Garage. Speed dial #8.

I could choose any of my buddies to show how useless we are but I chose Ian Grice and Pat Lewis because they might actually be less handy than me. It's close. It's something we've talked about, laughed about. I choose those two because I recall our respective wives discussing, in my kitchen, about who was more useless around the house. Talk about emasculation. The conversation went something like this…

Kira: “I just accept it. Jim’s not very handy.”
Kristen: “Oh you think Jim’s bad, you should see Pat, he calls the plumber if the toilet is running!”
Sharon: “I can beat that, my husband, Ian tried to fix our roof. I wound up with black tar sneaker prints all over my brand new carpet! No thanks! I don’t even ask him anymore. I wait until he goes to work and then I call my father.”
Kira: “Kristen, I should give you Fred’s number.”

My Mr. Fux-it fate was sealed early on. I tried to work with my Dad, I really did. In a nod to the genetic gods I took woodshop with Mr. Feuer freshman year at John Dewey high school. I had to show my Dad that I could tell a Philips Head from a flat head screwdriver! Our Final Project was to make a paper towel holder. Freshman Woodshop, a lay-up, especially for the son of Jim Spinner, foreman of the ExhibitGroup NY carpenters. We would be graded on three things. Our paper towel holder had to have a spindle, a shelf and it had to sit square against the wall. For an entire semester I lathed, I gouged and I planed. My shelf fit pretty well in the grooves I gouged and my spindle was basically round and would, Mr. Feuer pointed out, “Thankfully be hidden by the paper towel roll.” It was the planing and the squaring I had trouble with. The more I planed the more off square it got. A shaving here, a shaving there, I just couldn’t get it right. The shavings mounted and with each shaving, there’s less paper towel holder. Regretfully, the next to last day of class, I put my paper thin excuse for a final project in a brown paper bag and took it home on the F train. Talk about a pregnant pause. Sitting there with this glorified toothpick next to me, worrying about how to tell my old man, a man born with sawdust in his hair, that apparently I was unworthy of my birthright? Looks like University of Buffalo!

That night my Dad and I went down to the workshop. Surrounded by circular saws and scraps of wood I removed my paper towel holder from the A&P bag. Couldn’t tell if my Dad wanted to laugh or cry. Imagine how Michael Jordan might feel when his son keeps putting up bricks. He grimaced, tried to make a joke but remained conscious of not trying to crush my spirit, “Well Butch, not sure how much paper that thing can hold. Maybe we should start from scratch.” We decided we should build it together, as it was my school project. Eventually I wind up, like always, being a glorified gopher. The extent of my helping was to go get my father another Schaefer and to feign interest as he explained what we were doing. If only I had paid attention. Then maybe I wouldn’t be Mr. Fux it.