A Life of Service? Roger That.

This is the fifth in my series of Rolling-Stone-reporter-wannabe interviews, entitled... I've always had a hard time with the title...so let's just call it, "Friends with great stories."

For the past six months, my teenager has been hard at work on her life story, also known as her eighth grade portfolio. The girl's only fourteen but holy sweet mother of toner cartridges, this juggernaut has grown to the size of the Chicago phonebook! 

How's that for an old man joke? I've been practicing.

My point is that, regardless of how long we've been alive, everyone's got a story to tell. And heavens to mergatroid, a few of us have carved out lives with such colorful chapters, I feel obligated to share them.  And if I had to find a common denominator, I'd say my friends who've sacrificed the most, those who've lived lives of compassion, have had the most amazing journeys. 

Yada yada, Yoda. Post that beautiful meme to Facebook and move along.

I met Rog (pronounced Råhjhhj) in a high school weight lifting group. We were on the football team, and the coach had made it unofficially mandatory to take his P.E. class. Rog and I ended up working out together (I use the term "working" more loosely than a Limbaugh jowl) and spent fifty minutes every day making fun of the coach and pulling up our tube socks. 

We cracked wise as our chubby leader spat coachisms out his frothy mouth cracks, his polyester shorts buzzing like a little table saw where his thighs ground together. He clapped his meaty hands and snorted out football clichés: "Get strong, Trojans! Hum babe! I see a band of  warriors in this room who are gonna pin their ears back and lay some wood to Kennedy High School on September 9!" 

Lay some wood? Yeah, when September 9 finally rolled around, think balsa wood. 

"Owoooohhh! Let's get it on!" That was the dude we called Mole Man, our own version of Rudy, yelling from over by the squat rack. He was about five feet four and you could set your watch by his robust testosterone geysers. "Let's go, men! Hurts so good!"

During our two years together playing for mighty Troy, the team compiled a 2-16 record, amounting to a winning percentage of just over eleven. Didn't hurt very good to get beaten 54-6 by Evergreen, but a few hushed sideline jokes among the less serious salved the emotional contusions of being physically dominated on a weekly basis.

From an early age, Rog was drawn to stringed instruments. I used to love this picture until I found out it was taken at senior prom. At least he took some heat off the guys who brought farm animals.

After graduating in 1982, Rog opted to postpone college to address some lingering rock 'n' roll issues, playing bass for a year-and-a-half in '80s cover bands like this one called Splash:

Compelling concept for a band, no? That's him on the far left. Did Rog get a tad distracted playing"Mr. Roboto" while his low slung bass rhythmically assaulted his Speedo-covered loins? Perhaps, but it never…showed?

I know, too far again. But now for the good part, where our guest is allowed to talk. 

Rog, after eighteen months purging your rock demons and singing high harmony on "Hungry Like the Wolf," you experienced, shall we say, a total eclipse of the heart, and decided to go to college. When the money ran out, you applied for an Army ROTC scholarship, altering the course of your life significantly.

Definitely. The two-year academic scholarship bought me an obligation for four years active duty. My original plan was be a tank driver (I LOVED those things), but the Army had other ideas.

Since I didn’t want to go into the finance branch of the Army or to the Air Defense Artillery, my military science professor said my options were limited to two: medical school or law school. That summer I took the LSAT (the morning after seeing KISS and WASP in concert) and did well enough to get admitted to Gonzaga. 

Wow, I'm sure you weren't the first scholar propelled by KISS toward academic excellence. Actually, you probably were. Anyway, after meeting your awesome and beautiful wife Marci during college and marrying her while in law school, you graduated in 1990 and passed the Washington State Bar Exam, thereby beginning your military obligation.

After attending JAG School in Charlottesville, Virginia (Judge Advocate Generals are lawyers trained in military law), Marci and I were given three locations to choose from: Fort Polk, Louisiana, Fort Drum, New York or Panama. 

We both immediately vetoed Fort Polk, also known as swamp city. I liked the idea of Panama, but Marci—always the mature person in the relationship—mentioned that the United States had just invaded Panama the previous year, and she wasn’t too keen on living there for three years.  

Sounds reasonable. So it was Fort Drum by default, then.

Yeah. It was the home of the 10th Mountain Division, and had I done a little more research, I would have known that the chances would be very good that I would be going to some of the world’s favorite hot spots of that time.  

Like Somalia?

Like Somalia. We knew it was possible, since I was an Army lawyer. We go where the soldiers go.

And that's exactly where you were sent for six months in 1993.

I was there between April and September. To give you a feel for the situation, the Black Hawk Down sequence of events occurred three weeks after I left. 

We were the “QRF” or Quick Reaction Force, meaning our troops would get deployed to any trouble spots in Somalia that a general deemed worthy of messing with. My job was to handle everything legal. Early on, that meant writing wills and powers of attorney for soldiers. 

I also paid a lot of claims for damage that we (the Army) caused as a result of our own negligence. Let me explain the distinction: if combat action resulted in damage to property, we didn’t pay. But if our helicopters were training in an empty desert and one of the wire-guided missiles left the grid and hit a building, I'd be paying out a claim. 

Here's an example: At one of our road checkpoints, a young soldier accidentally discharged a round. The shot went through the windshield of a waiting car, killing a young Somali man.

I heard about it immediately and flew to the scene the following morning. Accompanying me in the helicopter were a paralegal, an interpreter and a security detail, plus a guy carrying ten thousand American dollars, which was the maximum I could pay on a claim.

We got to the village and I met the father of the deceased man. He was a a highly respected elder, looked about a thousand years old and arrived with his own entourage of five or six guys. 

Through the interpreter, I told him how sorry the United States was for his loss. I listened to him rant about what the Americans were doing there and why was his oldest son now dead? Not a lot of fun, but then I get to tell him the good news—I had a whopping $10,000 US for his trouble.  

He was insulted, which he should have been. I sure as hell would probably have swung away if the roles were reversed, and this was when I heard for the first time about “blood money.”  

This guy told me he didn't want our money. In the Somali culture, if an oldest son (and primary family breadwinner) is killed, custom demands that the responsible party provide one thousand camels as compensation.  

As this was being explained to me by the interpreter, I started thinking—I could save the government some money. The camels in Somalia looked awful; they couldn’t be that expensive. How hard could it be to round up a thousand and deliver them?  

I told the guy I'd look into it. We got into the helicopter and headed back to the base. When I got there, my boss told me I was out of my mind and that I would not be going out on the open market trying to buy camels (Precedent alone for this would have been disastrous.).

After a few days, I flew back to the village with the bad news. When the old man and his peeps showed up, the money was laid out on the table. I told him the US government is not in the business of camel herding, and that while I was deeply sorry for his loss, our laws and customs only allowed me to pay this amount.  

The old man got all pissed off and stormed out of the building. About an hour later, he came back alone, telling my interpreter he urgently needed to see me. I invited him in and he told me he would take the payment, but he couldn’t appear to be leaving with money at the risk of being robbed.  

He said in order for it to work, he needed yell and storm out again, just in case anyone was watching. The guy stuffed the cash into his underwear, signed a release and yelled for another five minutes. Then he walked out and down the dirt road that runs through town, never to be seen again.

Did you perform any other duties while in Somalia?

When I first got there and we weren’t being shot at or mortared, I would go out to the orphanages. We would bring soccer balls and supplies and spend time with the kids. I got close with one named Mohammed, and I still have his photo.  

He would visit me when I would sit in front of the embassy accepting claims.  I saw him every week for about two months—gave him candy, a Walkman, some cassettes—then he stopped coming. Soon after that we started taking rounds at the embassy, and I never saw him again. Chances are he ended up killed or working for Al Qaeda.

Over the ensuing twenty years, in both in active and reserve duty, you performed virtually every type of service for the Army—labor law, trial defense, even environmental law. Yet when you finally retired in 2009, you returned to another hot zone in a civilian role. Describe that.

I signed a contract with the State Department to perform “Rule of Law” work for a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan. We were basically sent to establish or re-ignite legal systems. The problem was, no lawyers or judges were around anymore; nearly all of them had left the country for places like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. 

All that was left were old lawyers who could not afford to get out of the country. During my time there, I worked on getting lawyers trained (there was a law school nearby that taught Islamic Sharia law.). The program took four years to spit out lawyers. so there was no quick fix.  

What little was left of the court system there, like every other political or administrative system, was corrupt. Tons of dollars were thrown at the problem. Every politician starting at the top of the food chain had their fingers on the money, and took a piece of the pie as the funds worked their way down to the town or village that needed a new police station or courthouse. Often times the money wouldn’t make it at all. 

Then there was the question about which law to apply—traditional Anglo Common Law or Sharia. We also had to compete with the Taliban shadow government, who had their own, Sharia-based court system. 

All in all, my opinion of what we were doing there was not good. My little piece of the picture indicated that our efforts were simply prolonging the inevitable, since there would never be a traditional court system with prosecutors, juries, and defense attorneys. I was more than a little disenchanted with our role and how I was handled as a contract employee.

Interesting. Speaking of "shadow" court systems, let's talk about the shadow job you've been performing for the past fifteen years when you weren't deployed to war zones and counseling soldiers.

Yeah, the “Big Job” working on the Seattle Mariner Grounds Crew.  On average I work around forty to fifty games of the 81 game home schedule. I started in September 1999. Head groundskeeper Bob Christofferson, a.k.a. the "Sod Father," started the next year. Since then, he, I and the rest of the crew have become like family. Most of us were around in 2001 for the All Star Game and the playoffs.

And if I'm not mistaken, 2001 was the last time the Mariners did make the playoffs, yes?

Yes, and there's a reason. The grounds crew started dancing in 2002. Coincidence? I think not. The baseball gods are NOT happy with us. Many of us on the crew want nothing to do with the dance, since we believe it has run its course.  

However, we are told there are many fans contacting the front office and marketing clamoring for the fat guys to get out there and shake it. We haven't danced all season, but it looks like we're finally going to succumb to the pressure.The choreographer was at the ballpark last night.

Anything else you'd like to mention before we sign off? 

One last thing. Marci has been incredible throughout the last 25 years. There was at least one time during my career that I could not tell her where I was going, and that had to be hard on her. I left her with our one-month-old son when I went to Somalia. I have been on numerous other deployments where she was left to be the sole parent to both of our sons for extended periods of time. She has never complained or asked me not to go.

Thanks, Roger. And thank you, Marci. 

A Series of Fortunate Events.

My daughter graduated from high school last Wednesday.

Loaded statement, that.

How, in a word, would I describe how I felt as the winding rivulets of Columbia Blue and white entered the stadium from the far end and slowly engulfed the track's north turn? How can I accurately portray in a single word, the intensity of my emotion as Pomp and Circumstance ushered the graduates in front of the bleachers, most wearing grins you'd be lucky to see once in a lifetime of Christmas mornings?

I think the word  is "rocked."

As soon as they turned down the home stretch toward their seats on the fifty yard line, I could make out faces. Parading slowly by was a group who'd encapsulated the past eighteen years of both a childhood and a parenthood. I gazed upon the procession, a surreal documentary streaming through my mind as each face unearthed a memory nugget, however small, from earlier days.

Most commencement ceremonies end with the hurling of caps into the air. Not this one. Didn't have to worry about Great Aunt Eufagenia's bloodshot eye being impaled by an errant mortarboard and leaking gelatinous goo onto the toupee of the guy in front of her. Nary a grad wanted any damage done to this or her custom-detailed head covering.

She spent two hours decorating that thing, ensuring that most of the rooms in our house had been lightly dusted with a sparkly reminder of where she'd be going in the fall.

Here she is with one of her best friends,Trevor. 

We love Trevor—and his parents. He'll be a Husky soon, bless his heart. I'm going to encourage my girl to keep in touch with Trevor, maybe grab some frozen yogurt or catch a movie when they're both home. And if, you know, they eventually find themselves with college degrees and jobs and having some sort of children together, that wouldn't suck at all.

She and Jake chose to walk together.

Jake's also highly awesome, as are his mom and dad. As an added bonus, these two will together tread the mossy climes of Western Washington University this autumn.

Grandma and Grandpa came. 

These people have cowboyed up, rain or shine, for just over twelve thousand of her t-ball, soccer, volleyball and basketball games, as well as miscellaneous performing arts and school pageants.

We know how those can be. 

And how could I neglect mentioning the two or three times per school year when they'd drop everything and motor up from Puyallup to care for a pink-eyed tot? Yeah, gold cord for the grandparents.

Last Wednesday was ridiculous in its riches. Here's what happened on June 12, in chronological order:

1. After a six-week construction period, our remodel was completed.

2. My wife was offered and accepted a teaching position she'd been pursuing for months.

3. Did I mention the whole high school graduation thing?

And finally, as I reclined in the living room that night waiting to drop my kid off at her grad night, I scrolled though the usual websites on my iPod. A single email popped onto the screen in the bold typeface of a message not yet opened. In the preview pane, the words read, "Thank you for your query regarding Ben's Fall…" 

That's the name of my book. For the past month or so, I've been sending query letters and sample chapters to literary agencies who are currently accepting submissions. I received a handful of prompt rejections, most saying things like, "It's not really for me, but good luck finding a home for it."

I tapped the screen and the remainder of the message appeared: "…I would like to take a look at the full manuscript. Please forward it as a Microsoft Word document, and I will get back to you as soon as possible."

As if the day hadn't proven to be enough of an emotional meat grinder, apparently Wednesday wasn't quite done making sausage. I read it and then read it again and then read it about nine more times.

Someone who works in New York City wants to read the whole thing! OMfreakingG.

Being of Irish heritage, I grappled with the idea of divulging item number four, since I don't want to jinx anything. But what the hell, if it happens it happens, and if it doesn't it doesn't, right? It's a step closer, after Wednesday.

Thursday was a little boring.

Give Us a Chance. We're Just Like You.

We've got a high school senior in our midst, and lately, she's been dishing up dollops of household angst. 

She's been getting all deep on us, harshing our mellows with her sentimentality and nostalgic yearning. 

All this, and her mom and I just want to party.

It's a time most of us remember vividly—that last chapter of traditional schooling when all that's left is a million flicks of the wrist launching a million mortarboards and nearly gauging out the cataract-clouded eyes of a million Great Aunt Carolines.

Yeah, our kid has really been reflecting recently, feeling little daggers of regret for not having soaked it all in just a bit more, that growing realization that things will never be the same. 

It's so tempting to extract the "when I was a boy" arrow from my quiver, but any anecdotal wisdom would surely careen off her still-teenage deflector shields. Plus, I can't really reach my quiver anymore, so I'm thinking it may finally be time to sign up for Pilates.

So, rather than inserting my gin-blossomed face into her grill and delivering a forceful lecture on my ability to relate to her senior sorrow, I'm going to jot it down in passive, twelve-point Arial. 

What better way to explain the mindset of youth than through popular music? Throughout the past sixty years, the pop charts have chronicled the pulse of our youth, and I'd like to demonstrate how things haven't really changed much. I've decided to sample the tops song names from my dad's graduation year (1951), mine (1981) and my daughter's (2013). You decide.

All included songs about hands:

In 1951, Nelson Eddy and Jo Stafford hit number 22, singing "With These Hands," 1981's number 19 tune was "Slow Hand" by the Pointer Sisters. And 2013 featured Akon at number 30 with "Hold My Hand."

Apparently, kids have always appreciated hands. I know I did, especially during that long, boring summer of 1978.

Commentaries on societal taboo and scandal :

In 1951, Vaughn Monroe reached number 76 with "On Top of Old Smokey," a song of forbidden love at remote Michigan logging camp. 1981's "Whip It," as performed by Devo, climbed to number 98, and in 2013, one man's sociopathic manipulation of his Irish Wolfhound is revealed in David Guetta's "Sexy Bitch," at number 31.

Crying songs:

Johnnie Ray hit the stratosphere with 1951's number 3 song, "Cry." In 1981, Don McLean reached number 40, with "Crying," and Flo Rida hit number 93 in 2013 with "I Cry." 

Wow, what a bunch of babies. Sorry, I should keep it positive.

Tunes promoting safe sex:

In 1951, Del Wood became one of the first artists to provide us with a road map of proper condom placement, singing the year's number 60 song, "Down Yonder," 1981's number 34 title, "Living Inside Myself" by Gino Vanelli,  points out the simplest way to avoid STDs and unwanted pregnancies. And BoB featuring Bruno Mars, currently at number 28, extols the virtues of condom use, with "Nothing On You." 

After reviewing these themes, I've got to tell you, I'm pretty impressed with the voices of America's youth over the past sixty years. I'd expected to find a predominance of gratuitous sexual themes, but I'm pleasantly surprised at the consistency of socially conscious subject matter. Hopefully, this exercise will help prove to our kids that we really do know what they're going through since we were there once ourselves.

Now, if Taylor Swift would just go away for a while.

An Unsung Bloodsport.

I walked toward the front door Thursday morning, bearing the fresh burden of the twenty-six ton man bag I'd just hurled across my shoulder. "See you tonight," I said.

"You bet you will." She stood in her bedroom doorway, looking every bit her just-woke-up teenagerness—pajama pants, one of fifty or so t-shirts emblazoned with her school's name, and the left half of her hair looking like Axle Rose's in that Welcome to the Jungle video. "March madness returns tonight," she said, betraying her non-enthusiastic appearance.

I grabbed the doorknob. "Yes, it does. Hey, good luck in your tennis match if you have one today."

"No match, just practice."

"Okay, then good luck at practice."

"No one says that, Dad," she replied, disappearing into the bathroom.

This spring is her final season of high school sports. After playing volleyball and basketball, each of which offer its own flavor of intensity, she's donning the old skort for the last time.

Ahh, tennis. It's the perfect tonic to ensure a kind and gentle ending. For the past four years, her coaches have permitted doubles teams to play together and stay together, so her partner has been her best friend the entire time.

Is it a recipe for overall team success? Probably not, but so what, they sure seem to enjoy themselves.

Sorry to get all Uncle Rico on you—again—but that ain't how things were back in my day. During the late Seventies, competition for spots on my high school tennis team was as fierce as it was moose-knuckled. We were constantly pitted against each other to determine the best combinations.

Plus, every once in a while, I had to play this guy who was so good, I seriously don't think I ever got a point off him. He had a tennis court in his backyard and his dad made the whole family play. Let's just say that kid toyed with me like a kitten nibbling a daddy long legs.

But, the weather was usually decent—by season's end you had a little bit of a tan—and our coach constantly took us out for ice cream.

However, a single overwhelming fact remains which made spring tennis the best sport of all:

It was co-ed.

Lots of cute girls.

In tennis dresses.

Sometimes they'd even show up with baked goods.

Usually ranked fifth,  I became a mixed doubles mainstay. My sixteen-year-old sensibilities were thrust into tri-weekly, ninety-minute relationships with different female temperaments. Most went well. I learned patience and how to choose my words carefully.

Even so, two ended in divorce.

About halfway through that sophomore season, I settled into a life of monogamy. The coach paired me with a freshman girl I sort of knew. We clicked immediately, mostly due to her inappropriate sense of humor and love of The Twilight Zone, but she was really interesting and smart. We became good friends and a fairly decent doubles team.

We entered the league tournament feeling pretty shaky. Neither of us had expected to compete in a varsity playoff, so we lost the first set badly, playing like our rackets were wrapped in meat. Finally, she and I settled a bit and began committing fewer unforced wood-clanking errors. We won the second set and after six games of the third and deciding set, the score was tied at three games apiece.

During the next game, as our opponents charged the net, I attempted a lob which, using tennis terminology, would be classified as weak ass. The guy on the other team rared back and slammed a laser beam—right into my partner's nose. She dropped her racket, grabbing her nose as blood dripped into her white, pleated skirt.

Her eyes welled with tears, yet her face displayed a look that wasn't one of pain as much as anger and frustration. People brought towels and ice, and then a strange adult approached us.

"You have five minutes to get back on the court or forfeit the match."

"Oh well," I thought. "We were doing great. Nothing to be ashamed of if we have to stop now..."

"I can play," she said. She moved the towel away, revealing her swollen nose and puffy eyes. "I think the bleeding is stopping."

"Really? Are you sure? " I couldn't believe it.

"Yep."

She walked back onto the court in her blood speckled clothes and settled in her previous spot, again a few feet from the net. I could tell our opponents, especially the guy, felt bad about the accident, but they also looked confident, like they'd hobbled us and intended to finish us off quickly.

Apparently, my partner had decided that since she'd committed to playing the remainder of the match with a swollen face and impressive headache, winning was the only option, since we didn't lose another game that day.

I'll bet I've told my daughter this story a million times and I'll probably repeat it a few more. That's okay. It never hurts to remember how a fifteen-year-old girl showed a sixteen-year-old boy the personification of toughness and loyalty.

So Good.

She left Tuesday morning, after five nights with us.

Over the past decade, Sealth High School in West Seattle, has been oscillating across a cultural zip line to Chongqing, Seattle's city in The People's Republic of China. Scores of teachers and students have ventured to and fro across the frothy Pacific, as have Chief Sealth's principal and Seattle's mayor.

The whole thing got a little more awesome Saturday night. For the first time, the girls' basketball team from Nankai High School in Chonqing played the Chief Sealth Ladyhawks. But I'll get to that in a second.

Last fall, our daughter brought up the idea of hosting a player sometime in January. My wife doesn't process information like this, but I thought "Okay, sounds good. Let's do it. Now I’ll forget about it and get back to this bag of Pop Chips."

And not until the Ms. burst through our front door cradling an Aerobed (which I highly recommend—Costco, $139.99. Slather on a strip of memory foam and it feels like lyin' in butta'.), did the old tickler file kick in—"Oh, yeah. That’s right. She’s coming on Thursday.” I may not be quick on the uptake, but nothing jogs the memory like a big box of inflatable mattress in the middle of your living room.

Thursday evening arrived. The two teams had already met and spent a couple of hours getting to know each other over pizza at the school. Around 6:30, our daughter's text told us she and her new friend were on their way home in our Kia Minivan, evidence that we truly are an international family.

Everyone was nervous as the girls stepped slowly into our living room from the chilly air. She stood a couple inches shorter than our daughter and ducked slightly behind her. She appeared slender in her purple and white team warm-ups and wore her black hair tightly cropped. When she smiled, I could feel a jolt of psychic energy emanating from my wife and younger daughter—"Oh, she's adorable." She was cute.

We took turns introducing ourselves and even though I'd previously told myself, "Her hearing will be fine, don’t yell. Just speak slowly," when my turn came, I barked my name out like I was trying to be heard over a blow dryer.

“Follow me,” my elder daughter said. “I’ll show you where to put your suitcase.”

She smiled and rolled her suitcase a step behind her host. “Your house is beautiful,” she slowly pronounced. Over the years, when people have initially surveyed the interior of our three-bedroom, one-bathroom rambler, I’ve heard things like, “I love the color of your walls” or “I like your wood floors,” but never those simple words, “Your house is beautiful.”

“Thank you,” replied my daughter. “Come sit down.”

The four of us sat around her, competing to ask questions, which made us talk faster and louder, which made her not understand. After a while, we calmed down a smidge and got to know her a little.

She’s seventeen. At fourteen, she moved away from home to attend Nankai. While she talks frequently with her family on the phone, she sees them only during the summer and a short winter break.

She doesn’t watch TV. Like ever. I think that one threw for a loop the two television master watchers in the room. I won’t say which daughter, but when I glanced over at her, her eyes said, “How sad. There’s a whole world you're denied.”

Springing up suddenly, our guest jogged into her room and returned, not jogging, balancing an armful of artwork, chopsticks and spicy meaty delicious things in clear little envelopes. And as a special added bonus for my co-workers, I’ve put up one of those gifts, a cool hanging thing, in my cubicle. Come on by.

Over the next few days, the two girls hung out constantly. When they weren’t atop the Space Needle or at Pike Place Market with their cohorts, they were at our house, where we plied our guest with as many Western foods as her constitution could muster. Beverage of choice? Either Coke or coffee. Dairy products, especially cheese which is a rarity in the PRC, became a favorite. We loved it when she’d remark, “So good.”

Back to Saturday, night of the big game. The festivities began with a few words from various program supporters, including Seattle’s mayor, Mike McGinn, who arrived late. At the conclusion of his speech, a group of “lion dancers” took the floor for a traditional Chinese dance in which two people occupy a lion costume, mimicking its movements while dancing to a pounding rhythm section.

But then, controversy. During the middle of the performance, with the entire audience spellbound by the show, Mayor McGinn decided it might be a good time to meet the Nankai team. Within ten seconds, he was engulfed, first by a ring of Chinese players and then by an outer ring of paparazzi, their flashes exploding in rapid succession and completely distracting everyone.

It was freaking ridiculous. Look, I voted for Mike McGinn and I may vote for him again when he seeks a second term later this year, but come on, Mike, that was a chumpish move. How rude is it to show up late and miss your photo op with the team, and then completely diss the lion dancers halfway through their show? I’m jabbing at my temple right now, mister. Think.

My daughter had been anxious about the game, since apparently, Nankai is the third ranked team in all of China. That’s not exactly like being number three in Luxembourg, you know? And they were good—fundamentally skilled and aggressive, pushing around the yanks from the getgo. Our guest was lightning quick, constantly driving into the paint and either dishing off or laying it in. After a close first half, the Chinese team pulled away in the second, winning by twenty.

Afterward, the teams embraced and assembled for an impromptu “Gangnam Style” at center court. Nothing beats the international language of obnoxious pop music that sticks to your brain for days on end.

Forty eight hours later, she sat on her last night with us. We surrounded her on the couch as usual. “I will miss you,” she said, making eye contact with each of us. Then she looked away and everything got quiet. She was crying. While my wife grabbed a box of tissues, I hurried out of the room and came back with a couple of things we thought she might like.

Seattle skyline socks:

And some adidas slides:

According to well-placed sources, these two items are crucial in displaying the off-court "baller" look. It didn’t exactly lighten the mood, however. In fact, she just peeked into the box then closed it and looked away with a pained expression.

“Do you like them?” our daughter asked.

“Of course,” she replied softly.

My wife, younger daughter and I hung out a little more, then excused ourselves, leaving the teenagers to enjoy one more night together. By now, they’d become quite adept at communicating with each other; they shared music and got themselves hooked up to a Skype-type software that will hopefully allow them to communicate in the future.

Funny how five days can change your outlook on so many things.

So good.

Reunited, and it feels so good...until the next day.

It was a good time, a really good time.

I knew it would be, mostly because we've had three of them now, but the excitement still couldn't mask those groundless pangs of anxiety and apprehension.

My thirty-year reunion.

I tried to hedge as many uncertainties as possible:

The hair was cut three weeks ago. Any sooner and it wouldn't have grown out enough to ensure strategic comb-overs. Any earlier than three weeks prior would have assured a halo of platinum neck fuzz poking its eaglet talons from below the back collar into the sensitive skin below the back neckline, forming a distracting silver and red constellation of dermal abrasion.

I bought a new shirt. It matched my sideburns, which wasn't planned, it just worked out that way. The black shirt with thin silver stripes was embarking on its maiden voyage, which, in retrospect, wasn't a good idea. I felt like the kid who shows up back from spring break in white Chuck Taylors right out of the box. Opting to wear a t-shirt underneath to avoid looking like Phyllis Diller's head was bursting out of my chest Alien-style was a solid choice.

New earrings. Good idea, but again, too sparkly. Unfortunately, I had to choose between some brand new bling and some blackened old hoops with more embedded dead skin tissue than Ted Bundy's Volkswagen.

Enough is enough, I thought. These are people with whom I share angst- and humor-filled memories of growing up together during the Sixties and Seventies, and accordingly that puts them at roughly my age. Wow, go figure. Stop stressing about a little less hair and considerably more belly fat and prostate tissue and enjoy yourself.

During the months leading to this soiree, the location had endured endless, light-hearted ribbings. It wouldn't be held at a Casino, a racetrack or a hotel banquet facility—it took place at the Auburn Senior Center.

Electric scooter and nap jokes abounded, but I didn't hear many complaints about saving enough money by staging the event at the former Auburn Public Library to sap the local Costco of its entire supply butterscotch pudding and Ensure.

It was a little strange sipping an ESB in the former children's book section, but, whatever.

Upon arriving, any nervousness evaporated as soon as I hugged someone, and then someone else, and then someone else. The evening's essence quickly materialized in the form of warm, lasting squeezes as opposed to the more accepted and distancing "pat-pat" hugs.

I was further comforted that some things haven't changed at all between once-a-decade encounters. Here's an example of a guy with whom I've spoken at each reunion:

1991—Male classmate, extracting his wallet from his back pocket and flipping it open to reveal a photograph of his son—"Yeah, that's him. He's a year old and he's totally kicking my ass."

2001—Male classmate, extracting his cell phone from his back pocket and flipping it open to reveal a photograph of his son—"Yeah, that's him. He's eleven and he's totally kicking my ass."

2011—Male classmate, extracting his iPhone from his back pocket and displaying a photograph of his son—"Yeah, that's him. He's twenty-one and he's totally kicking my ass."

Early in the evening, I had volunteered to share my hotel room with a good friend so he wouldn't have to drive back to Seattle. Much later in the evening, I caught myself saying to him, "So, when do you think would be a good time to head back to our room?"

"Our room?" he asked.

Yeah, that was a weird way of putting it. We laughed pretty hard at that one, and the next time I just said, "Ready to head back?"

Events like this tend to move at warp speed. They're so fun that they commence in inverse proportion to happenings like accounting classes and root canals. Before I knew it, the sky was lightening and I had been hanging with my classmates for eleven hours.

I realize a lot of people would actually rather go to the dentist than attend a reunion. But give it a shot, and here's why:

A small group of folks exists which saw you leave for the summer sounding like Bobby Brady only to return two months later, an inch taller and sounding like Greg.

This tiny assembly of people contains human beings who were the first to make your heart bounce out of its ribcage. You couldn't yet label these feelings; you could merely chase that person to the swing set and after catching her, stand dumbfounded and glazy-eyed.

Most of us live our lives immersed in other generations' cultures—our children's, our co-workers, sometimes even our grandchildren's.

Well, this was our night. This pod of individuals who originally met as boys and girls and graduated as teenagers assembled as middle-aged men and women on Friday night.

And quite a bit of Saturday morning.

Budget shmudget. My Quarter Pounder is getting cold.

At the risk of committing the cardinal sin of blogic redundancy, I'm beginning this piece using the same scenario as my previous entry. 

As I drove my teenager to school Friday morning, we pulled up next to a white Toyota Camry, with a dark blue hood.

"Hey, that's Eric." My daughter's eyes transformed from the usual glazy randomness to a more sharpish focus.

"Did he get into an accident?" I asked. "Looks like he had to get a new hood."

"No, he painted it blue one purpose, so he'll always be able to find it."

I had to take a moment to not blurt out the first three thoughts that sprang into my brain:

1) A blue hood would've come in really handy in finding my friend's car after seeing Kansas and Styx at the Coliseum in '79.

2) Is Eric planning on moving to Los Autos del Blanc, or "Land of White Cars," after graduation?

3) What a freakin' ridiculous thing to do.

I verbalized none of these thoughts as we continued the additional six blocks to the school, where hordes of adolescents slowly shuffled into the building. I mumbled a silent prayer of thanks to the childcare gods, grateful that the impending government shutdown would not affect school teachers and hence, unleash these idle masses of hood painters onto our daytime society.

As we all know, the Congressional pillow fight ended just before midnight, when Mom must have come into the rec room and told everyone to settle down, clean up the chip crumbs, and get into their sleeping bags.

Crisis averted. Barely.

This never had to happen. A federal budget totaling $3.7 trillion whittled itself down to an ideological urinating contest over women's health. Once again, that evil lightning rod, otherwise known as Planned Parenthood, prohibited Congress's right wing faction from exercising the will of the majority of Americans.

Or so I'd like to believe. Throughout this skirmish, I had to wonder if the majority of us really cared that much about a seemingly abstract budget debate. Public outrage wasn't all that apparent, especially compared to what might happen if the Fox Network abruptly announced, "American Idol has been cancelled for the foreseeable future, due to a Havarti dispute regarding Mr. Tyler's dressing room deli platter."

Rioting, looting and disastrous ratings.

Or what if French Fries were declared illegal due to health concerns and their sales halted throughout our nation.

Citizens would take to the streets with signs and bullhorns, screaming their discontent. They'd become a little winded, sit down and loudly voice their vapid displeasure from collapsible camping chairs. Then they'd Thank God Funyuns and pork rinds have yet to feel the scythe of government overreach.

What if our military personnel were told to keep throwing their bodies on IEDs and we'd settle up their wages in three weeks or so, while their wives, husbands and children on the home front scramble paycheck-to-paycheck to make ends meet?

Hang on a second. That almost did happen.

Perhaps if this fiasco had lasted much longer, more of us would have felt the impact of a government operating on fumes, but I'm not so sure.

Gotta go. The Kardashians are on.

Let's hug this out, but please don't touch me.

I drove my teenage daughter to school this morning. Rather than immediately bolting the high school campus to put some distance between me and our country's future as expeditiously as possible, however, I briefly sat at the helm of my dirty minivan and watched the children interact.

These kids are huggers. Big huggers. But not in the traditional sense. They don't engulf each other in hulking bear squeezes; in fact they don't prolong the gesture for longer than an eyelid spasm.

Adolescent female embraces more closely resemble human air hockey, where a cushion of atmospheric resistance buffers two tight American Eagle tee shirts from touching. Slight, accidental brushing of fingertips may contact an unsuspecting scapula, but such an incident is rare and highly discouraged.

I'm not going to lie...I love hugs. I love hugging and being hugged; I love wrapping my arms around my daughters after a week of trail blazing camp or a day at school. Hell, sometimes I hug my cat.

I love watching two people or a large group hug, especially when it's a family reuniting with a camouflage-clad member returning from a hostile place.

It seems, though, that our society has developed a tiered system of pseudo-hugs, "hugs lite" if you will, where the intention is to display intimacy, but with far less physical commitment. Lets look at a few of these subsidiary embraces:

The dude hug: Guys, especially straight guys, are insecure about hugging each other. For some reason, a heartfelt, uninterrupted embrace signals testosterone deficiencies and weakness. Therefore, men will commonly begin with a handshake and utilize the shared grip as levers to pull each other inward for a quick chest bump and back slap with the two unencumbered hands. Done. Now separate to a safe, heterosexual distance and look the other way.

The side hug: Usually quite awkward, the side hug is a move which is settled upon, rather than planned, after a series of uncomfortable, jerky actions and responses. Similar to a gateway drug, a side hug is a gateway gesture of tentative intimacy until next time, when the full frontal hug may be appropriate.

The "pat pat" hug: This baby burping technique signals, similar to the dude hug, an insecurity with the coupling. Next time you hug someone you don't know very well, see if you do this.

The drunken hug: I'll tell you, if I had a nickel for every time I've done this one. Just kidding. Not really. The drunken hug is usually accompanied by the words "I love you" whispered into the huggee's ear. Hopefully, it's not someone you'll see at the office on Monday morning.

The sorority girl hug: Please see high school girl air hug above and add an air kiss and a disparaging remark after the recipient is out of ear shot.

I've probably listed enough hugging subsets to make my point. My challenge to you, the reader, and myself, is this: Hug someone you don't like very much, and really hug them hard...no pats, no air buffer. They'll be surprised, annoyed and they'll feel petty about any disagreements you've had in the past.

Mission accomplished.

Hey! Show some class!

 Is the human male’s instinct to protect its young as voracious as the female’s?

You decide.

Lately, I’ve been prone to exercising my own brand of paternal vigilantism, and I think it may be time to step back, calm down and possibly evaluate pharmaceutical options. 

I’ve been yelling…at children…children I don’t know.

On Tuesday night, my daughter’s high school basketball teams hosted a “quad,” where the boys’ junior varsity, girls’ junior varsity, boys’ varsity and girls’ varsity, play four games against their respective counterparts from another school. It’s an economically prudent measure for a school district that isn’t on sound fiscal footing—one trip, one bus.

My daughter’s team played the evening finale, so the opponents’ squads who had already played were seated in the bleachers, clearly identifying themselves in their matching warm-ups. Two players from the visiting boys’ team were seated apart from their teammates, in folding chairs near my daughter’s team bench and behind the basket.

One of these kids caught my attention almost immediately after the girls’ game tipped off. He did anything possible to distract the home team, standing and waving his arms during free throws, yelling at the players, even booing a referee’s call with which he disagreed. Initially, I tried to ignore the obnoxious, six-and-a-half-foot man-child, but soon, my stomach acid was churning, begging for attention like a bouncing bile puppy.

I felt myself slowly transforming from Bill Bixby into Lou Ferrigno. Sometime during the third quarter, I’m not sure when, I felt my legs lift my body out of the seated position and carry it down the steps toward the corner where the giant jester lie in wait.

“Hey!” I yelled. No response. Again, “Hey!” He looked over at me. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? I’ve been watching you for the past three quarters. You’re harassing our players while they shoot free throws.”

“No I’m not.”

“I saw you.” And this is where I ceased being Lou Ferrigno and became Lionel Haywood, my father. “You’re sitting there, representing your school, wearing your team colors and showing no class whatsoever.”

“F&#k you,” he mumbled, looking away.

“What did you just say?” Back to Ferrigno. “I’ll tell you what. If you want to cheer for your team, that’s fine. But if I hear or see another taunt, your coach is going to hear about it. Got it?”

I felt his eyes bore into me as I turned and ascended the steps to my seat. As I resumed watching the game, we again made eye contact. “Show some class,” I mouthed to him, again channeling my father.

As I rose to leave after the game, my peripheral vision glimpsed his tall figure approaching from the left. I wasn’t sure what to expect.

“Sir.” He stood next to me but looked down at the top of my head. “I just want to apologize. I behaved badly and I’m sorry.”

“Uh, I appreciate that. Thanks.” I shook his hand, feeling surprised and relieved.

On the drive home, I pondered the evening’s happenings, and decided that, although my actions were justified, I really needed to savor these contests a little more; I should not allow these outside factors to influence my enjoyment of watching my girl play hoops.

Two nights later, in a hotly contested grudge match on the floor of the cross-town rival, my daughter shot an air ball while attempting a three-pointer.

The opposing student section launched into a familiar chant: “Airrrrballlll! Airrrrrballlll!”

Okay, I thought, now’s the time to take my own advice. Just brush it off. No big deal; they’re just kids. I glanced to my left, where two skinny ninth-graders joined in the chant.

“Hey, you guys. Show some class. That’s my kid.”

Just remember: Someday they'll be taking care of us

They're so young. They're so thin. They're so...not smart.

I drove my fifteen-year-old daughter to school this morning. As we travelled up the narrow corridor known as 35th Avenue, one of West Seattle's main thoroughfares, I steered gently around a young cyclist. He pedaled a too-small bike, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans on this fifty-degree morning, while wearing headphones and no helmet.

"Hey, it's Justin," blurted my daughter as we came even with the wobbly rider. "He goes to my school."

"Is he smart?" I asked rhetorically.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay, let me change your answer," I snapped back. "He's not smart. I can count four stupid things he's doing right now. He's wearing a t-shirt in the cold weather, he's not wearing a helmet, he's listening to music and he's riding on a really narrow, busy street. Justin is stupid. Stupid Justin."

"Geez, Dad, calm down."

"Sorry, I just see these kids, and they're your age, and they make me crazy. Most of you guys are learning how to operate cars. Maybe your friend Justin needs to learn how to safely ride a bike before he can even think about driving."

"Dad, get angry much?"

"Okay, I'm done."

We picked up Zoe's friend and continued on to the high school. I don't normally converge on her academic facility at this time of morning, when all the inmates are gathered outside or entering the building.

I stopped at a crosswalk in front of the school to let a group of kids pass. They performed this task admirably, with the exception of one young man who stopped three steps into the street, after realizing he hadn't finished his cigarette yet, and couldn't bring it onto school grounds. He stayed there, blocking my way, until his frontal lobe finally engaged and sent him retreating to his original curbside locale.

We proceeded through the crosswalk as I watched him suck down the last fumes of his smoke. I found it ironic how he wore expensive basketball shoes, basketball shorts and a Jordan t-shirt, yet he'd probably struggle to sprint the length of a hoop court.

Small gaggles of kids assembled in the drop-off area, where I stopped the van to let the girls off. One young woman split off from her group and approached our car to meet my passengers, her hands clutching a two-liter bottle of Grape Crush and large bag of Lays Potato Chips.

Hmm.. well, they may not be bright, but teenagers are definitely tough. If I ate that for breakfast, I'd need the defibrillator paddles.

Tomorrow, she's taking the school bus.