Let Them Eat Crab.

It’s been a great summer; best in a long time. I can think of a few reasons why, but number one on the list is an unprecedented preponderance of household harmony. The home and hearth, while fully occupied, has emanated the aromatic bouquet of tranquility.

Why? Because the kids have gotten along.

Why? Because they haven’t been around each other much.

And for the last time, why? Because the older kid’s been working! 

Gives me goosebumps to say it. All summer she’s been whacking the alarm clock and punching the time clock, packing a lunch and coming home spent like a two-for-one Applebee’s Groupon. To a skeptical parent, how soothing flow the foamy waters of the Protestant work ethic. 

By the same token, for a college sophomore who typically brims with the boundless energy of a seven-year-old, what more serendipitous summer vocation exists than an opportunity to professionally frolic with genuine seven-year-olds? None that I can think of, so let’s see how things went.

I caught up with our YMCA-camp-counselor-in-residence, codename Zebra, last weekend during a ninety-minute car ride down to Olympia. Able to nap at a moment’s notice, I felt compelled to engage her prior to her succumbing to the taunting luxury of our ’06 Hyundai. 

They call you Zebra. Why is that?

All the counselors have nicknames. It’s to keep the kids from finding us on social media. Like a little kid would actually do that.

Hey, you never know. Did you name yourself?

We all name ourselves. There’s T-Rex, Sharkzilla, Scooby, Snickerdoodle…let’s see… Razzle, Flounder, Puppy…

Sounds like a mushroom-inspired Barney episode.

Good one, Dad.

So what was it like having to wake up at 6:30? 

Really hard. I haven’t gotten up that early since eighth grade. It made naps even more crucial than they were before. I still managed to get in eight hours a night.

Yeah, that’s not true. But moving along, was there anything that surprised you about this job? 

It’s fairly unstructured. Each counselor gets a group of ten kids, and it’s up to us to find things for them to do. We go on field trips a few times a week, but the rest of the time is sort of our choice. 

How do they behave?

Overall, they’re pretty good. The worst time is when we’re lined up for the bathroom. It takes a full 25 minutes to get everyone through, so they start messing with each other. They throw rocks and pine cones at each other. They use acorns like currency. 

Sounds like a prison yard.

I still can't figure out how their faces get so dirty. Did my face get dirty?

Filthy. Just disgusting. Yes.

The other day a kid came up to me holding a little crab he found on the beach. It was still alive. He said “Zebra, can I eat this crab?” I said “Absolutely not.” He said “Well, how come Tristan gets to?” I went down to the beach and Tristan had already eaten a couple of the legs off a live crab. I said “Tristan, why are you doing that?” He said “Because people eat crabs all the time.” I said “Tristan, you have to kill the crab before you eat it.” He said “I didn’t know that, Zebra.”

What part of your job did you enjoy the most?

I always liked it when we ate our lunches. The kids were always content and liked to talk about stuff.

What kind of stuff?

This one kid, whose name is Joseph, is so cute. When he makes the “s” sound it sounds more like “sh.” The other day, he said “Zhebra, I have to tell you shomething. Well, remember when I told you one of my momsh ish dead? Well, I feel bad. That wash a lie. She’sh alive. I jusht wanted to shee what you would shay.”

They don’t care about hanging out with the opposite sex. A couple of kids even became boyfriend and girlfriend. They’re so adorable, you can tell by the looks on their faces that they really like each other. They give each other acorns.

Sounds like quite a learning experience. Do you think working with kids may be something you’d like to do for a career?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Dad.

Thanks for your hard work with the little ones, Zebra. Relating to them is easy. Taking care of them isn’t.

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. 

Help Me Pick Up the Pieces.

Your time is valuable. I understand this.

But I need your advice regarding something that happened today. Seriously, I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t need you to unleash your hounds of wisdom upon my tender pink meat of ineptitude. 

Here’s what happened: 

Every morning, I drive my fourteen-year-old daughter to middle school. Usually, by the time we've come within a couple blocks of our destination, the roads have already become clogged with cranky chauffeurs and their pubescent offspring. 

You know how school zones are supposed to work, where the speed limit is twenty when children are present? We’re implored to gingerly maneuver our vehicles through the clouds of Axe body spray and foggy-eyed adolescence as America’s future shuffles into the building with neon Cheeto fingers and the raw funk of pituitary promise. 

Yeah, not at this school. It’s an all-out “I’ve-got-six-minutes-to-get-to-work-if-you-get-out-while-we’re-moving” mentality. Cars stop in the middle of the street; kids dart in front of you, brushing your hood with scuffed clarinet cases. This three-minute taste of the Apocalypse is overwhelmingly the most dangerous part of my day. 

This morning, we’d just entered the hot zone and had elevated to alert level Orange, similar to the Bush-era system, yet not stupid and ineffective. 

I wasn’t driving fast, which is probably why we didn’t collide. The Honda minivan was pulled over, its front wheels pointing toward the street. As I juked slightly to the left to pass, the vehicle abruptly accelerated into my path. 

I leaned on the horn and stomped the brakes, our rusty minivans jerking to a stop and forming a “V” in the middle of the street. The driver’s eyes locked onto me. She scowled and pulled away, exhibiting a gesture possibly only recognizable to the indigenous herders of Lapland.

Oh yeah, plus we knew this person.

“Oh, my God, Dad. That was Chrysanthemum (not her actual name).”

“Sure is,” I said. “Chrysanthemum needs to look before she pulls out.”

I wasn't sure how to feel. I was embarrassed yet certain the mishap was her creation. My daughter and I have known her and her daughter for five or six years, yet until this morning hadn’t been on the viewing end of her axe murdering face. Regrettably, that one wasn't on the old bucket list.

So what the hell do I do now, get her a freaking Starbucks card? Nah. 

After pondering my choices, after jotting out T-charts and crunching numerous cost/benefit analyses, I’ve whittled my options down to the following:

1) Apologize. Maybe I was driving a tad bit aggressively, and therefore am partly responsible for the near miss (Or, as George Carlin once said: “That’s not a f—-ing near miss. That’s a f—-ing near hit.”).

2) Do nothing. Act as if it never happened and distract Chrysanthemum with a smothering bear hug next time I see her. People love my hugs, you know.

3) Egg her house.

I’m leaning toward a combination of 1) and 3), but I’ll hold off until I hear your suggestions.

My Friend the New York Jet.

Here's his last flight in the F-16, January, 2010 over upstate New York.

Welcome to the first episode of "Amazing People I've Known, but This is the First Person I've Actually Showered With."

Today, I'd like to relate the story of Christian Peloza, a guy I've known since 1970, right around the time Vietnam was raging, the Beatles were breaking up and a half hour of Roadrunner contained more amusing violence than Pulp Fiction.

He ate the same hamburger gravy school lunches, wore the same Sears Toughskins and drank from the same neighborhood garden hoses as the rest of us.

Which is why a lot of the kids from Forest Villa have those lip sores that flare up occasionally.

Christian lived on the street behind me. He was the new kid in second grade, and even though he was a year younger than everyone else after skipping a grade in California, he was big, smart and athletic.

I remember watching him play soccer at noon recess, booting the ball forty yards with his mens' size nine Red Wing boots. Together, we inhabited the white middle-class suburban terrarium known as Auburn, Washington. 

We rode the pine together on the junior high basketball team. After a few games, I decided playing in the game would be okay, but cracking jokes with Christian down at the end of the bench was more fun and significantly less stressful.

Finally in June of 1981, after growing up together through an era of Watergate, Farrah Fawcett, Steve Martin and the Miracle on Ice, the whole"parallel paths" thing screeched to a halt. Here's Christian's story, with my comments italicized.

Why did you apply to the Air Force Academy? 

The whole thing happened by accident. A friend of my dad's happened to be a liaison for the Air Force Academy and when I was sixteen he asked me where I was going to college. Like most teenagers I just shrugged my shoulders. He produced a catalog that made it look like a pretty good deal (as most catalogs do) and I decided to apply.

I really had no desire to fly; I just thought it would be good way to get a free education. Once I got there, I found out that the catalog made it look a lot better than it really was, but I was too stubborn to quit. I'm glad I stuck it out because getting to fly fighters turned out to be my calling. I can't imagine doing anything else.

You finished high school at seventeen and a couple of weeks after graduation, found yourself reporting to Colorado Springs. Talk about the first couple of days.

Needless to say, it was quit the culture shock (think John Candy in Stripes)—trying to acclimate to the seven thousand foot altitude, getting my clothes taken away, my hair shaved off and everyone yelling at me for anything you can think of. 

It was challenging mentally and physically that first summer, but at least we outnumbered the upperclassmen that were training us. When the rest of the Cadet Corps showed up for school, we were greatly outnumbered, but the academics turned out to be the most challenging aspect of all with seven classes each of my first two semesters. Trying to manage all that in between the yelling, mandatory military training, athletics and meals was a huge challenge to say the least.

I don't know, that doesn't sound too hard compared to my college experience. Try dragging yourself out of bed at nine-thirty  in the morning after a late night draining the spodyody with the Gamma Phis. I willed myself through some brutal hangovers and still made it to 1:20 Geology at least half the time, tough guy.

Anyway, at the Academy if you decided you couldn't take it anymore, you could still withdraw consequence-free until your junior year, right?

Yeah, if I had decided to quit in my junior or senior year, it would have resulted in a two year enlistment.

Meaning you would have had to serve two years as a non-commissioned officer?

Yes. I did briefly think about quitting my second year but changed my mind.

Wow, imagine if you had. We wouldn't be talking about this next part of your life. In May 1985, you graduated from the Air Force Academy and received your commission as a Second Lieutenant.

Yeah, then I drove to Del Rio, Texas and spent a year training on the T-37 and T-38 aircraft. I discovered I really enjoyed flying, did well and received an F-16 as my follow-on aircraft. I continued on to Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico for fighter lead-In training, where I flew AT-38s and learned the art of tactical flying. From there I went to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida and trained on F-16s for six months.

And before you knew it, you found yourself in the middle of Operation Desert Storm.

Desert Storm was the first air combat the United States had been involved with since Vietnam, and as such, we didn't have anyone with combat experience. It was quite nerve-racking leading up to those days before Jan 15, 1991, not knowing what to expect. Well, it turned out that we didn't have a lot to worry about. I think the Iraqis expected us to come in at low altitude which would have been suicide with all the Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) they had.

They were shooting Surface to Air missiles (SAMs) at us, but we had a lot of time to react at higher altitudes and they rarely had the desire to guide them all the way through intercept for fear of our Anti-Radiation Missiles from the F-4Gs guiding on them.

In the earlier stages of the war, a few American planes were shot down, right?

A couple of units decided to fly low those first few days and a few of them were shot down and taken as POWs. And then on the last day of the war, Bill Andrews, a pilot from our unit, was captured on the last day of the war during the retreat of the Iraqis from Kuwait City, along the "Highway to Basrah". He took an ill-advised dip below the weather to check things out and was met by a barrage of AAA and Shoulder fired SAMs. He jumped out, was captured and released a couple of weeks later.

The lowest point of the war for me happened one night as we flew back to the United Arab Emirates. We'd flown three combat missions that day, and my dedicated wingman Dale, the guy who had been on every combat flight with me, flew into the ground. Apparently, he became disoriented when I made a turn away from him to start our approach, and he flew right into the ground thinking he was doing fine.

Just a couple of weeks prior, Dale had helped me find an air refueling tanker when we were both about to run out of gas. The nearest base was fogged in and we didn't have the fuel to make it to another one. Dale gave me the initial heading to reach the only available tanker, and I got on the refueling boom with about five minutes of gas left. This gave us just enough to get to a base without fog.

I can't imagine what it must have felt like to lose someone like that. You were stationed with the New York Air National Guard on September 11, 2001, correct? Describe your experience that day.

Yes, my unit was based in Syracuse, but half of us weren't in New York at the time. We were deployed to Saudi Arabia to Prince Sultan Air Base, located on land owned by Osama Bin Laden's father--a wealthy Saudi businessman. Like everyone else, I watched it in horror on the television after returning from work that afternoon.

I knew that an act of war had just occurred and we would be going to war in Afghanistan. Four days later, our replacements arrived and we flew home. It was really eerie on the radio because there was no other chatter from the usual airliners--only us and the FAA. They let us fly wherever we wanted because we were the only planes in the area. 

We found out that for the portion of our unit still in Syracuse on September 11, things were a little more exciting. The Eastern Air Defense Unit tried to scramble our jets against the airliner that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania. But since we weren't an "alert unit" and the base held no live ordnance, it took time to get unscheduled jets ready to fly. By the time they got airborne, the airliner had already gone down.

At any time during your career did you find yourself in a bona fide dogfight or near-one-on-one battle with an enemy fighter? Don't worry, I'm not going to say "Like Top Gun," because no one could ever kick Commie ass like Maverick.

Air-to-air engagements have been a rare event in the past 25 years, sort of like winning the lottery in my business. I spent a lot of years after Desert Storm enforcing the no-fly zones north and south of central Iraq. I would occasionally get an Iraqi aircraft on my radar but none of them ever crossed the line.

How many tours did you complete in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I deployed to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey many times in support of the Northern Watch (enforcing northern Iraq no-fly zone) and Prince Sultan, Air Base in Saudi a couple of time in support of Operations Southern Watch. I went to Qatar twice in support of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). 

We could fly to both Iraq and Afghanistan from this location. My last deployment to Iraq was in country at Balad Air Base. Daily insurgent artillery attacks from outside the base were commonplace. It happened the first day I was there; someone was killed as I was diving into the nearest shelter wondering what was going on. 

By the time your career wound down, how long had you spent flying?

I retired a Lieutenant Colonel on February 1, 2010 after 25 years in the Air Force. I'd accumulated 4300 hours in the F-16, which still is ranked sixteenth all time among the several thousand pilots worldwide who have flown it. 

Here you are with your daughter after that last flight. What a fantastic shot. Your kids are now twenty-three (twin boy and girl) and eleven. How did they feel about their dad's occupation?

My older kids were very aware of what I did for a living. The military forced us to move frequently so it affected their lives quite a bit.

Let's shift gears and talk about another remarkable event in your life—reuniting with your birth parents ten years ago. 

Were you ever curious about it as a kid, or was it something you gravitated toward in adulthood?

I knew I was adopted from as long I as I can remember, but it didn't mean a lot to me since I was busy being a kid, and I never really waned to find out who my birth parents were. The curiosity kicked in during my late thirties,and finally decided to pursue it when I turned forty. 

Washington State had recently passed a law that allowed an intermediary to open my birth records and approach the biological parents to find out if they wanted to meet me. Both of them did, and after that it didn't take long. 

I was very surprised to find out that they were both Canadians living in British Columbia. My mom had given me up for adoption in Seattle when she was nineteen, went to college in Vancouver and eventually married my dad. They divorced eighteen years later, but each remained living in the same town.

We agreed to meet in Everett, Washington at my mom's sister house. It was really strange seeing my biological roots for the first time--features that belonged to all of us and then the slow discovery of why I was the way I was. I really think that genetics are stronger than environment in determining who you are. 

I met my dad later that day back at my hotel. My newly-found cousin happened to be getting married in nearby the next day, and  I remember walking into the room with my mom and watching everyone stare and compare the two of us. 

It was a fun night, and we've kept in touch ever since.

I'm glad we've kept in touch, too. Thanks, Christian.

Brace Yourself.

She was giddy, yet fretful."What if there's a huge yellow stripe after they take them off?"

I didn't reply; a non-answer is often the best answer. I craned my neck around and backed our rusted Kia onto the oil-stained asphalt, our faithful family steed again summoned to perform the lord's work—this time, a trip to the orthodontist to remove my thirteen-year-old's braces.

"Who's the first person you're going to show your awesome new teeth to?" I asked as she reflexively punched the knob for the station that only plays Katy Perry, Gaga and people who sound exactly like Katy Perry and Gaga.

Eyes fixed on the road, I nonetheless felt the singe of her scorn on my platinum cheek chaff. She sighed deeply. "Dad, I won't need to show anyone. Everyone will be like, 'Let me see your teeth.' It's going to be so awkward."

"You've got to be pretty excited though."

"I guess." Same sigh.

She pried down the visor and grimaced into the mirror. "My gums are so uneven."

"What do you mean uneven? Like sort of wavy or something?" I knew asking two consecutive questions was dangerous and risked ridicule.

"Uh, Dad, no. No, please, not wavy. Ugh. Just like, you know, like…uh, never mind." She cranked the radio to erase our conversation. MileyRihannaKatyGaga shrieked out a tune I know so well I could karaoke that thing in American Sign Language. 

I shut my yap for the rest of the trip; so much for making conversation with my adult she-puppy. I couldn't help but feel excited for her. I mean, come on, getting your braces off is one of the most exciting rites of passage for an eighth grader. I'd put it right there between a new KISS album and a good bumpy bus ride. 

According to the Delta Dental website, studies have estimated that anywhere from fifty to seventy percent of American kids will wear braces between the ages of six and eighteen. That's a whole lot of cranial torque across this great land of ours. And judging by my daughter's experience, the technology hasn't changed all that much since the days when my teeth were laid with more railroad than the Tacoma tide flats.

Here's what things looked like prior to all that steel and rebar. 

While the top two-thirds of my head resembles a young and chubby John Davidson, the lower section looks like a freaking mouth tsunami blew through. For God's sake, I'm surprised I still have a functioning uvula after exposing it to unimpeded wind gusts. Good thing I didn't know anyone in South King County who hunted beavers for their ivory.

After four yanked teeth, some gum surgery and two years spent peering up at the ropey veins of my orthodontist's straining biceps, things finally closed up enough to re-hydrate my leathery sockets. 

Here's my "after" shot.

I think I love me.

An hour and a half after disappearing into the examining room, my girl emerged with her brand new smile and a gift bag brimming with heretofore forbidden sweets. Immediately curling a stick of gum into her mouth, she looked at me. "Come on, Dad. I want to make it back for fourth period."

"What's your hurry?" I asked. "You said it would be awkward."

"Ugh, Dad…please." I heard the blare of the radio before the click of her seatbelt. "Let's just go." 

She's a beauty.

Hollywood's Land of MIsfit Toys.

Remember Chuck, the older brother on Happy Days? You don't? That's probably because he only appeared in a handful of Season One episodes and then vaporized into the hazy post-high school brother who never was. Chuck didn't even show his toe-headed self on subsequent Happy Days holiday specials where everyone comes home. He must have gotten himself messed up with drugs or was sent to Nam or something.

Television casting is an ever-morphing amoeba; always has been. 

How about when Partridge Family drummer Chris, a dark complected, brown-haired lad transformed into yellowy blond Chris for Season Two? Why did it even matter? Those kids didn't play the instruments anyway, and if anyone screamed to be replaced, it was the little one,Tracy, whose jerky tambourine demonstrated the musical prowess of a young Linda McCartney.

Here are a couple shots from the pilot episode of Leave it to Beaver. If your facial recognition skills seemed to have failed you, fear not. The original Ward Cleaver was some guy named Casey Adams. The first Wally was a kid by the name of Paul Sullivan. Wow, Pete Best has nothin' on those poor sods, getting replaced by Hugh Beaumont and Tony Dow after one episode. That must have been rough for those guys, sitting on the sidelines while The Beav and Company rocketed to pop icon status for the next half century.

When we welcomed The Brady Bunch into our homes that fall of 1969, it didn't take long at all for Robert Reed and Florence Henderson to light up our tubes with raw sexual energy. Those two appeared born to play Mike and Carol Brady, especially when they were in their pajama-clad foxiest. 

But did you know that Joyce Bulifant from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Gene Hackman had originally been penciled in to play the very Brady parents? I'll admit, Gene Hackman might have turned a few heads with his puka shell necklace and manfro, but not nearly to the level of Robert Reed, especially back lit in the soft sunsets of Waikiki.

Yet even America's favorite white family had a nosy neighbor named Nielson to spar with, especially when Bobby and Cindy grew up enough to start looking like Rob and Candy. Enter Oliver, the newest, cutest ratings magnet to stuff his Dorothy Hamill bowl cut into the Brady split level.

Not sure Oliver helped steady the foundering comedy; he may have actually tainted its fragile chemistry.

During my prime TV watching years, a couple of shows experienced fairly sizable cast turnover. After Three's Company captured lightning in a bottle with Jack, Chrissie, Janet and Mr. Roper, the show's potency leeched into the slog when Suzaane Somers was swapped with Jinelee Harrison and Mr. Roper was succeeded by Mr. Farley, played by Don Knotts. 

But when Farrah Fawcett turned in her badge and bikini to Charlie after a contract dispute, that hit home. I was fifteen years old and had just been given my brother's old TV when he went to college. It was one of those big console sets, black and white, and it was mine. I guess you could say that Tuesday nights were my "date night" with Charlie's Angels. Jill, Sabrina and Kelly materialized in my room at eight o'clock and filled my musty teenage lair with their silky presence for the next forty-two minutes. 

It always seemed to go so fast, and yet somehow, I had plenty of time.

I don't pay much attention to many TV shows now, especially network stuff. An obvious example of current day high-profile actor replacement is the whole Two-and-a-Half Men situation, where Ashton Kutcher surfaced in the wake of Charlie Sheen's toxic jetsam. I've heard the show's not as good now. 

This one is my favorite. In 1968, Chirstina Crawford, daughter of faded Hollywood starlet Joan Crawford, had been playing the role of 28-year-old Joan Borman Kane on the daytime soap, The Secret Storm. While recovering from surgery, Christina's role was filled by her wonderfully versatile mommy dearest, John Crawford. 

Here's a typical example of the elder Crawfords's ability to take the audience by the hair and flog it with the wire coat hanger of thespianic genius. Let's face it—she looked every bit the part of a 28-year-old—who'd been smoking and drinking nonstop for the past fifty years. Masterful.

Regrettably, there are two other categories that come to mind. The first is the list of actors and actresses who died during filming and hence necessitated quick and tasteful decisions by network creative staff, people like Corey Monteith in Glee, John Ritter in 8 Simple Rules and Phil Hartman of Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. All so sad.

And lastly a group exists which is best illustrated by the Bewitched, Darrin Stephens tag team of Dick York and Dick Sargent. No one even seemed to care that Darrin was played by a different guy. It was kind of like when your roommate comes home with a twelve pack of Bud Light and you really wanted Coors Light but it's cool because at least your roomy bought the right cigarettes.

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.

Food for thought

"Hey, Dad, what's for dinner?"

Such a seemingly innocuous question, yet so loaded.

My family spends an inordinate amount of time thinking, talking, complaining and ruminating about meals. If my kids aren't eating, they're discussing what and when they'll be eating next.

Part of it can be rationalized, as my fifteen-year-old daughter burns through calories like an Escalade limo devours fossil fuel. Things have progressed to the point where I'm considering the purchase of a soy bean farm/black angus ranch in Ritzville, Washington to meet her dietary requirements.

Which brings us back to the original inquiry: What's for dinner? As we parents are fully aware, the answer is black or white, right or wrong. Kids judge our dinner decisions like George W. Bush assessed the world's nations in the "war on terrah"—either you're with us or you're against us. And since school has started, our schedules have filled up considerably, leaving little room for contemplation upon returning home after a busy day.

My wife, the human embodiment of organization and efficiency, has begun planning the week's menu on Sundays. She scours the cookbooks for quick, healthy dinners—meals which don't include titles like "fish sticks," "tater tots," "hot pockets," or "toaster strudel." After she's found five recipes which seem palatable (on paper) to all family members, she jots down the ingredients and I grocery shop.

We don't consult with our children; we know them well enough already, and the less they know about meal preparations, the better. We go to great lengths to omit those two Voldemort-like words which incite fear and revulsion in our offspring—crock pot. Kids, we're not having soupy red crock pot, where having chili. That's not floating brown crock pot, it's delicious beef stroganoff.

After they discover that their supper is originating from this forbidden appliance, it's like telling them we brought home some great movies. It's just that they happen to be VHS tapes from the public library. My ten-year-old recently stated that the only acceptable crock pot dinner would be lobster.

Nothing like eating a lobster that's been slow-cooked in cream of mushroom soup all day. Talk about animal cruelty.