A Breath of Fresh Air

Fate is a powerful thing. Especially when you have the wherewithal to recognize fateful moments as they are occurring. On the Middlebury Town Green a few years ago, during the ceremonial lighting of our town’s Christmas Tree, Kira and I made the acquaintance of one Heather Roy. Heather was sitting with our neighbors, the Jorgensens, and we were introduced. We exchanged pleasantries and most of our attention was on her Newfoundland puppy.

Bending down to tousle the pup I asked, “What’s his name?”
“Leo,” Heather replied.
I looked sorrowfully at the dog and said,  “Oh that’s a horrible name. How could you do that to that dog? He’s going to live the rest of his life as Leo?”
“I know….”

As we walked away, Kira, my wife, scolded me, “You know sometimes people don’t get your sense of humor.”  “She thought it was funny. Come on, she knew I was kidding.”
That night, Heather reached out to me on Facebook. We chatted a bit and I reminded her of my comment about her dog’s name. I mentioned that Kira thought she might have been insulted, I can be sensitive like that. I blamed it on the Brooklyn wise-ass in me.  She assured me that she had a thick skin and a biting wit herself.

Fast forward to the summer. Heather’s family was hosting a Fresh Air Fund boy, Mekhi, who was  living on St. John’s place a short bike ride from where I grew up. Heather recalling my Brooklyn roots, reached out, “You have to meet our Fresh Air Fund kid, he’s from Brooklyn.”  I knew all about the Fresh Air Fund from my city days and from my days as a camp counselor. I thought, Hmmm, what about us hosting a city kid at our place in “the country?” Not only was Heather hosting but she’s the coordinator for our area. I knew I had to get my wife and boys on board…

At our town beach on Lake Quassapaug, on Mekhi’s first day in Middlebury, Heather introduces us. We chat for a bit about his neighborhood, about his school and the good pizzerias near his house…then he flits off to play basketball. I continued to talk to Heather about Fresh Air Fund. I knew it was something I wanted to be involved with. Eventually she says, “I’m having a barbeque at my house for all of the host families, you guys should come by.”

Sitting with Kira, side-by-side in our beach chairs, I broach the subject of the BBQ at Heather’s “Heather’s hosting a barbeque for the Fresh Air Fund families tonight at her house. She said we should stop by.” Kira is unsure, “That might be weird, we’ll be attending but everyone else there will be hosting a kid.”
“I know, Heather said it would be cool. We won’t have to cook dinner! I bet the food’ll be good.”  Eventually, she caved.  My plan was working.

The barbeque was a success, my boys had a blast playing Manhunt with a mix of local kids and our new visitors. I spent some time chatting up the city kids about their experiences with the Fresh Air Fund and was even more convinced that we should host a child. In the car on the way home…my boys took up the cry…”We should host a kid. We should do this next summer. It will be fun. Come on? Can we do it? “
Kira balked,  “I don’t know, it’s just going to be more work for me. More cooking, more cleaning, more laundry.”

So that was her objection? Easy to parry that, “Honey, I hear what you are saying but I’m a teacher, I’m home all summer. I think we should do this.”  She continued to deflect, the boys pestered, eventually, we let it lie. Sporadically,  throughout that summer, the boys and I applied pressure, reminding Kira that we should become a host family.

As we progressed into the cold months of another New England winter, I kept stoking the “hosting” fire, selling Kira on the benefits, I would bring it up when we were in the car so she was captive. Eventually, Kira relented, “Alright. But this is on YOU.” At some point we had to fill out paper work and submit to a background check. Yes we passed.  In the Spinner household, Friday night is Pizza Night, those Brooklyn-Catholic roots have some staying power. Rather than just fill out the paper work, I invited Heather and her family over to enjoy pizza night/happy hour with the Spinners and our neighbors the Jorgensens, who were also contemplating hosting a boy.  Usually an energetic host, Kira’s arms were still folded, her mantra of, This is on you holding firm. I shopped for the beer and wine, I cleaned the house and coordinated picking up the pizza.

As our guests arrive, Kira softens, she moves into hostess mode. After dinner, we sit in the living room, a roaring fire and some cold winter lagers in our hands and Heather begins to pepper us with questions for the required paperwork. I’m thinking, This is happening. After a night of laughs, good food and drink, our guests leave and we clean-up. The boys begin to ask questions:
“So, are we going to get one?” As if the Fresh Air Fund boy is a commodity.
“How old will he be?”
I give them as much info as I can…“We requested a boy from Brooklyn who is about 10 who likes sports, is comfortable around dogs and knows how to swim.”

With visions of an ABC After School Movie Special running in my head, the Fresh Air Fund was placed on the back burner. During the spring months…we would get the occasional email about the Fresh Air Fund and it would move to the front burner. More questions from the boys. What will he be like? What if he’s not fun? What if he doesn’t like it here? What if we don’t like him? Summer’s approaching and I begin to plan out our week: hiking, biking, boating, trips to the town beach, a Red Sox game, a tour of ESPN, trips to a Rhode Island beach? Still from the Ice Queen I was getting, This is on You.  I was surprised. I really thought she would be whole-heartedly behind it, especially as summer approached.
Finally we are connected to Chris Robinson. The name sounds literary to me, like something out of a Mark Twain novel. Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Joe Harper and Chris Robinson heading down to the swimming hole to swing off the rope swing. Or is it because it’s close to Winnie the Pooh’s friend, Christopher Robin that I’m thinking literary character? I just know that this is our guy.

About a week before Chris is to take the bus from Port Authority, with the 37 other city kids coming to our area of Connecticut, I reach out and chat with his grandmother, Delka. She gives me information about Chris, explains that he has done Fresh Air Fund before, out in the Hamptons the previous summer (gulp how can we compete with that?) and that he likes dogs etc…I get a little family history, Chris’s mother passed away a few years before at an early age. The word she keeps working into our conversation is, sweet. “Chris is a really sweet boy. You guys will really like Chris. We will miss him around here, he’s such a sweet kid. In school, he won an award, he was student of the month for his whole district!”

Then the day: The bus leaves Port Authority on a Monday morning and will be to our neck of the woods a few hours later. The boys craft a sign of welcome with some artwork about the upcoming week on it, The Spinners Welcome Chris Robinson! There’s a picture of Fenway Park, a Red Sox B, the ESPN logo…We put together a little care package: Sour Patch Kids, M&M’s,  a Nerf Football and of course a book. I chose My Side of the Mountain, I thought it was appropriate. If you don’t know it, it’s a classic survival story about a city kid who runs away to the Catskill Mountains and survives on his own.  We are early to the pick-up spot, (a Jim Spinner rarity so it shows how excited I am )a McDonald’s parking lot off of I84 in Waterbury. Some of the other host families are milling about in the parking lot. Nervous, I ask questions of the more experienced host families.  I make small talk with the Millers who I know from our town, this is their first year hosting too. Eventually, we sit in our car with the air conditioning on getting text updates on the progress of the bus—they left the city at 11, they just passed Danbury, they passed exit 15….and then the bus pulls in.

For many of the kids and host families, it’s a reunion, there are shrieks of joy and welcome. For others, there’s the shy introductions, the anxious hand shake, the overly welcoming voice. One by one boys and girls  emerge from the air conditioned bus, with each one we are excited… Is this him? Is that Chris? It’s painfully slow and I’m feeling bad for the kids who have been on the bus for hours.  We can see into the bus, through the tinted windows, Chris is one of the last boys off the bus. As the Fresh Air Fund administrator calls out the Spinner name,  I notice that he’s wearing jeans and a pretty heavy jacket, and he’s pulling the jacket up over much of his face.  We approach each other, go through the friendly handshake, formally, I look Chris in the eye, “Chris, I’m Mr. Spinner, this is my wife Kira, this is Nicholas, Brian & Charlie…we are SO HAPPY you will be joining our family for this week…” Hand shakes all around, nice to meet you, nice to meet you…We get into the SUV, and all of the cars leave the parking lot.

As we drive toward Middlebury, I am glancing in the rear view mirror, Chris is still hiding inside his jacket. I play the Brooklyn card, “Where do you go to school Chris?” “IS 88” I know the school so I talk about where it is and we chat about the neighborhood…Chris continues to keep his jacket over his mouth and I’m thinking, I hope he’s not too scared. I hope he’s not really weird. What if he acts like this all week? Kira will kill me, after all, this is on me.

I needn’t have worried. The boys give Chris his care package and as we’re heading west on I84, the car fills with conversation, with questions, with possibilities for the coming week. We tried to do a mix of special activities and give Christopher a little taste of everyday life in Middlebury. We offered Chris his own bedroom, thinking he might like that because he shares a room with his siblings at home. Chris said he would prefer to sleep on the floor in Brian & Charlie’s room. We moved a mattress in there, below the bunk beds, in front of the Xbox, and that’s where it remained for the whole week. The first night, we took Chris to Rich’s Farm for some special ice cream.

Chris brings out the best in my boys…they easily share their toys, their rooms and they are on their best behavior for pretty much the whole week. It was heart-warming on so many levels. Kira and I treat Chris as one of the family, giving him chores to do just like the other Spinner boys. My boys do their jobs with a little less grousing, which is nice.

By the second night, it feels like one long sleep-over, it really couldn’t be going any better. Chris is a great kid and meshes nicely with my boys. It’s intriguing to watch my boys seeing our lives through a different lens. I could see my boys looking at Kira and I (who were also on our best behavior mind you) and thinking, my parents are actually pretty cool, maybe. That Tuesday, we headed up to ESPN headquarters in Bristol, my friend Tom Hennessy hooked us up with a tour of the facilities. That was the highlight of the week. We got some history and a behind the scenes look at how things are done at the world’s leader in sports broadcasting.  By the end of that second night, I’m sitting on the couch reading, I’ve got a ballgame on in the background, the boys are upstairs having a blast when they all come clumpity clump  down the stairs until they are standing in front of me. I know I’m being ambushed for a favor.
”Dad? We were thinking we really want Chris to come back next year.”
“Yeh Dad, he fits right in with us, things are going great, let’s have Chris come back again next year.”
I put the paper to the side and let out a heavy sigh, “Listen fellas, I know it’s going great but it’s only been two days. It’s a long week. As far as I’m concerned Chris, actually all of you, are still on probation. Let’s see how the rest of the week plays out, we don’t have to make that decision right now.”   My boys, knowing my sense of humor, look for Chris’s reaction, kid doesn’t miss a beat, “Oh, Mr. Spinner, you’re just messing with us.”

Every night, we go through the routine, teeth brushing, pj’s on, last trip to the bathroom and I still give my boys a hug and kiss good night. Of course, Chris gets a good night hug and kiss too. I head back down to the living room. I can hear the boys horsing around, talking and laughing, and a bit later, Brian comes down to get a drink of water and he says to me, “Dad, Chris just said to us that he feels like he’s a part of the family.” Hah, it’s all working according to plan heh heh heh….

Sometimes there are happy endings. The one fly in the ointment, the one thing I didn’t think about was, we’d have to give Chris back to his own loving family. The final two days or so, the inevitable good-bye is hovering there for all of us. By Saturday and Sunday, we begin talking about Chris’s leaving, “Don’t worry, he lives in Brooklyn, we go to the city all the time, we’ll visit. Hey, we’ll take him to Grimaldi’s Pizza….” but there’s that little lump in the throat. Monday, after a thoroughly amazing week, we drive Chris back to the McDonald’s parking lot. My wife, after all the arm-folding, and all the deflections, is a blubbering mess.  When we get back home we’re both wandering aimlessly around the house and Kira says,  “Why did you make me do this? I don’t like to feel this way, I hate you for making me do this. I miss him so much.”  Gloating with self-satisfaction, secure in the knowledge that for ONCE, things turned out exactly as planned, I resist the urge to say, I told you so, because after all, This was on me:-}
P.S. If you want to contact our local Fresh Air Fund Rep, let me know:-)