Measure Your Treasure

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

I VIVIDLY REMEMBER my first dollar of disposable income.

dis·pos·a·ble in·come
/dəˈspōzəbəl ˈinˌkəm,dəˈspōzəbəl ˈiNGˌkəm/
noun: income remaining after deduction of taxes and other mandatory charges, available to be spent or saved as one wishes.

I was probably 7 or 8, walking to a friend’s house up the street. There it was; a dollar bill! You know how in the sketch of George Washington on the ONE he’s turned slightly, facing left-ish, but his eyes are cut back to the right? His look seemed to say to me, “I’m yours now, let’s do something fun.” So my friend and I walked to a little neighborhood grocery store, bought a can of vienna sausages, a loaf of bread and a couple of Tootsie Rolls. It was an impulse purchase spawned from hunger. Once I was full of bread and little weiners, I wish I had bought baseball cards.

Thumbing through my vinyl records, trying to decide what to listen to next, I started estimating how much I had invested in just the records in this one box. From the early days of having a few dollars to spend, often I chose music: records, 8-track tapes, CDs, digital music, concert tickets, drumsticks, stereo equipment, headphones, turntables, speakers. Throw in the guitar in its case behind where I’m sitting right now, a set of Ludwig drums and Zildian cymbals in another room, you could label one large treasure chest “MUSIC” and find a huge piece of my heart.

My love of music is not unlike a hunger. It’s different than that feeling that leads you to use your found money to buy vienna sausages. Music is an experience without end. How can you take a limited number of notes like the eight of an octave and add a few half tones and make endless melodies? Consider a song that you’ve heard many many times before. Play that song from a quality vinyl record on a good turntable with a good cartridge, into a phono pre-amp, to a powerful amplifier through quality cables and into well-designed speakers or headphones and you will hear things there you’ve never heard before: soft strings, the rumble of a distant bass drum or the ting of a triangle, a voice in harmony, all adding layers and more layers.

My dad had a young friend named Ken. He was a school teacher in Tulsa. After school he made pizzas in a little joint called The Pizza Parlor he owned on 11th Street in Tulsa. For several years he taught school and made pizza but finally took up the pizza business full time. He changed the name to Ken’s Pizza Parlor and later expanded to a brand he called Mazzio’s.

I spent a lot of the disposable income of my youth at Ken’s. His original pizza sauce and thin, crispy crust are something I still long for. If you had enough friends to share the cost of a pie, there would be enough left for a few songs on the jukebox. I can close my eyes and picture the checkered table cloth, the red glass candle holder, the smell of the pizzas cooking and I can hear Otis Redding singing “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay…”

So, in the years of my first coming of age, you could measure my treasure or the disbursment thereof and guess that my heart longed for round things that came in square packages like a new L.P. record album or a Ken’s pizza to go.

A really good pizza and a classic record share more than their shape. They are both like a package deal—a complete meal, a complete experience. Together they cover the all the senses: touch, sight, smell, sound and taste.

I’m not an expert in either music or pizza, but I’ve had my share of experiences. I’ve heard live in concert a range from Led Zeppelin to Rene Fleming. From Diana Krall to Jars of Clay. The Beach Boys to Elton John. Vanilla Fudge to Pink Martini.

I’ve had pizza from Ken’s on 11 Street in Tulsa, and pizza in Florence, Italy. A slice or two from Saluggis in New York City to Uno’s in Chicago. Which is better Chicago deep pan or New York City pizza? It’s apples and oranges. It’s Miles Davis and Blake Shelton.

PIZZA AT UNO’S IN CHICAGO WITH OUR BEST BUDS—CHARLIE AND SHIRLEY

It’s all nuanced. Whether it’s a good slice or a cool L.P. you need to enjoy in just the right setting, at the right time. You need to be open to something new. You need to listen and taste slowly and attentively.

Memories and music, treasures and matters of the heart.

FLAT AND GLUM

FLAT! It has a certain undesirableness to it doesn’t it? Flat tire. Fell flat. Flat tired. Flat land. Smashed Flat. Even in music, flat the third of a chord and it becomes a minor chord and maybe The Blues.

B.B. King

I’m a part of a group of old guys that meets once a week at a place called The Quarantine Pub. It’s a virtual place (via Zoom). Our topics of conversation vary widely: world events, sports, art, books, movies, cars, poetry, food & drink, women, death, life, the call of the wild, the past, the future, and the present (just to mention a few). In a recent meeting we were talking about the overall state of things—the pandemic cloud, unrest, too much rest, old age, etc. One of the guys in the group described how he felt as “Flat”. Yes! That’s what it feels like. Not really depressed or discouraged or remorseful, just… Flat. I had been looking for the perfect descriptor and there it was.

One of my favorite YouTube channels is done by a guy named David. He lives aboard a narrowboat on the canals of England. I’ve mentioned him before. In his last video of 2020, he announced that he would not be making as many videos.* It hit me hard. It was the same feeling I had when I watched the last episode of Downton Abbey or The Queen’s Gambit or Seinfeld or Frasier or heard they were closing Bell’s Amusement Park in Tulsa. (Well that may be a little over-stated.)

In his last video* he talked about feeling the impact of this dark, gloomy state we’re in, trying to find just the right word, I was yelling at him through my computer screen: FLAT!!

He didn’t hear me but he used another word: Glum. That’s a very British sounding word I thought. But I like it; so much so that I searched the dictionary to get a bit of history on the word. What I found was so interesting. The word, although it sounds like something from the past, is more popular today than it ever has been. I don’t know who’s keeping the count on these things for all these years, but I’m taking their word for it. Take a look at this screenshot and note especially the graph for the word’s mentions.

Now we have two emotionally loaded, clear words to describe life in the winter of 2020-21: flat and glum. So what do we do about it?

Carpe Diem. Seize the day. If the day is too big and ominous or out of reach, seize the moment. Understand something: I’m talking to myself here. This blog is part public writing and part personal journal. I’m not trying to tell anybody what they should be doing. I’m planting and fertilizing ideas in my own garden. We’ll see what pops up.

Moment seizing I can do. If one-day-at-a-time is too daunting, too fraught, I’ll shoot for moments. Not literal minutes, but the moments. Like Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem. Like Amanda Gorman breathing new life into poetry and recitation. Like the Thunder coming back from 18 points down to beat the Chicago Bulls. Like the Facetime calls with our kids. Like my Amazing-Missus’ banana nut bread.

I can look forward in glimpses too. I can’t focus on a large chunk of time like the rest of 2021 for example. But I can anticipate getting my second dose of the vaccine in a couple of weeks. I can look forward to spring, to our next road trip, to gathering with our family and my brother and his family to finally lay our parents remains in the ground together and celebrate them once more.

Since we’re going slow anyway, why not stop to smell the roses (which I think is another metaphor for seizing the day or the moment), that is if you’re still able to smell things like roses.

Did you hear the news morsel about the flood of bad reviews for scented candles. From Newsweek:

A customer wrote on Yankee Candle's online shop for the Sparkling Cinnamon fragrance—a one-star review, where the purchaser, under the headline of "Waste of money," wrote "I purchased three of these. What a waste. There's virtually NO scent to these at all!! If I wasn't confined to my home because of covid I would return these for sure."

Turns out scented candle sales are down. Complaints about scented candles not being scented are up. But is it the candle or the covid nose? The corelation is too significant to ignore.

I guess if you can’t smell the candle or taste your food… Blame the Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker.

See what happened here? I slipped into a different coping tool: if you don’t like the ways things are, find someone or something to blame. “We wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be flat and glum if it weren’t for the Other—the other guy, the other party, the other worldview, the other politician, the other race, the other religion, the other ____________.

I’ve tried this approach, it’s a gimmick, a fool’s errand. It’s a lie. You can’t rehumanize yourself by dehumanizing others.

So, I’ll be here seeking to seize the wonderful moments, availing myself of the opportunities by reading good books, listening to good music, spending time (in person and virtually) with people I love, watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, praying, meditating, and eating banana nut bread.

I know that “man does not live by bread alone” so, I’ll have some of her biscuts and gravy too. Seize that!

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Here’s a link to David’s video on YouTube. Watch it all but especially the section from 3:05 to 4:32.

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WHO'S NUMBER ONE?

LET’S SAY YOU ARE ASKED TO SIT AT A TABLE. On the table are several items and you are asked to choose one. Your choice is a predictor of your future life. At least that’s the tradition in some cultures. It’s called a picking or choosing ceremony and it is usually done at a child’s first birthday party.

My cursory research on the ceremony lead me to understand that items like paper money are set out and symbolizes that the child will be wealthy if it is chosen. A toy sword represents a successful career in the military. Books, scrolls, and calligraphy brushes or pen and paper represent the child being a scholar or a starving artist.

Based on who I have become, I’m guessing that the things I chose from the items my parents set before me included a drum, a Snickers bar, a pen and notebook, and a pizza.

Who knows at one year old who they will be? It takes a few miles along the road for the journey to matter and make sense. It’s a whole lot easier at 70 to see destiny than it is at One. Abraham Maslow said, “What a man can be, he must be.” That’s true whether you’re One or 70.

For me that means being Pops! I can be that and I must be that. Once again this dang pandemic is standing in the way of my plans. For example:

TODAY. JANUARY 19, 2021 IS JEREMIAH FULLER’S FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!

First Birthdays are a key event for self-acutualized grandfathers who have embraced the high calling of spoiling the Grand-Kids.

Jeremiah is the youngest of our Grand-Kids. His mom and dad are Brooke and Kyle. Somehow they, along with Jeremiah’s siblings: Haddi, Everly, and Malachi, are going to have to provide a worthy party and celebration to make up for the fact that his Pops and Mimi are elderly and at this point have had only the first vaccination of two to try and stay alive so we can attend his second birthday party.

I’m no seer, but I know a thing or two about our Grand-Kids including the Birthday Boy. All of these kids are loved (and sometimes tough-loved), nurtured, and cared for. They are given opportunities to explore, create, discover, and grow.

If Jeremiah’s parents were to put a bunch of items on the table for him to choose from I have no idea what he would pick, but I’m pretty sure the next day he could very well choose something else. I know this: Jeremiah will be happy, he will love and serve others, he will nurture his soul and know deeply he is a child of God. He will be beautiful and handsome. On occasion, because he is an adventurer, he will try the patience of his parents but they will always know he loves them. And he will know he’s loved unconditionally.

So for this First Birthday we’ll have to make the most of things. His Mimi has sent him a party pack with goofy hats and stuff. His Pops has written this post to say, “I’m sorry we can’t be there with you little buddy. Please forgive us. Can you feel the Happy Birthday vibes we’re sending to you in Alva, Oklahoma, from our pandemic bunker here in Oklahoma City?”

You have our full-fledged, unwavering love on your birthday and every day.

DON'T WORRY BABY

WE’VE GROWN WEARY of the news cycle: COVID-Trump-Insurrection-Repeat. We have also grown weary of regular TV—you know, endless ads for prescription drugs with happy old people risking it all on countless, awful side-effects, interspersed with bits of “Wheel of Fortune” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns.

Let’s watch a movie! Netflix had a recommendation for us: “Runaway Bride” with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It was just the comfortable, predictable, escape we needed. The title says it all (spoiler alert) it’s about a bride that runs away. She’s made several trips to the marriage alter, but flees just before vow time. But, then along comes Gere…

It took me back. Forty-nine years. Just this time of the year in 1972, I was attempting to woo and wow a pretty young lady.

I was a student at the University of Tulsa, playing drums in a rock and roll band, and driving a school bus for Tulsa Public Schools. She was a senior in high school and had just been selected Miss December by the student body. Her life was fine and full. I hoped to make it Fuller (wink, wink).

The top five tunes on the radio for this same week back in 1972 were:

You're So Vain —Carly Simon
Superstition —Stevie Wonder
Me And Mrs. Jones —Billy Paul
Crocodile Rock —Elton John
Your Mama Don't Dance —Loggins & Messina

The political scandal du jour:

In January 1972, G. Gordon Liddy, Finance Counsel for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President and former aide to John Ehrlichman, presented a campaign intelligence plan to CRP's Acting Chairman Jeb Stuart Magruder, Attorney General John Mitchell, and Presidential Counsel John Dean that involved extensive illegal activities against the Democratic Party. According to Dean, this marked "the opening scene of the worst political scandal of the twentieth century and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency". —Wikipedia (Dean, John W. (2014). The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It).

On Valentine’s Day 1972, I offered THE ring and asked that all important question: “So, do you think Nixon will go down in history as the worst…” NO, NO, NO! Not that question. THE question. The for-better-or-worse question.

She had so many reasons to say NO. She could have said, “You’re in school with high tuition hanging over you. You’re a drummer and a bus driver.” For-richer-or-poorer? “Ummm, No. I don’t think so.”

So how did it turn out?

I just told you about happily watching a Netflix movie together. Are you paying attention? My bride did not runaway. As Paul Harvey used to say: “And, now you know the rest of the story.” Was she ever tempted? Well, if I were married to me, I would have to say YES, I would have been tempted to run away from me on numerous occasions.

Maybe you've seen the movie “About Schmidt” with Jack Nicholson. The movie starts with his character, Warren Schmidt at his retirement dinner. It's the beginning of a road of dark comedy that many of us could relate to but none of us want to travel. The title of this blog--About Pops--is a respectful borrowing from the title and theme of the movie.

Shortly after retiring, Schmidt’s wife passes away. He slips deeper into a funk, believing his life has not counted for anything. He goes on a road trip, all alone, in a motorhome his wife purchased for their retirement years. One night he’s sitting in a park on top of the RV talking to his deceased wife:

“Helen, what did you really think of me, deep in your heart? Was I really the man you wanted to be with? Was I? Or were you disappointed and too nice to show it?”

That is one of the most tragic lines in any movie ever. I just wanted to shake him and say, “Warren; buddy, she didn’t run away did she? She bought the RV. She was looking down the road, the road with YOU. Sure maybe you’ve been a pain in the bumper, but apparently she was holding out hope for some bliss somehow somewhere.”

I remember January of 1972, I almost flunked out of a scuba diving class. (Had to get that pesky P.E. credit.) It was an evening class. On those winter evenings I wanted to be with her, not in a swimming tank learning how to decompress before surfacing from a deep dive. I skipped so many classes I almost failed my final test dive, but I had something more important going on.

Although certified, I’ve never been scuba diving. I’ve had something more important going on. Oh I don’t have the fervor that my 21 year-old self had, but I still hope to woo and wow her at 70 and beyond. Am I the man she really wanted to be with? Or is she disappointed and too nice to show it?

We’ve taken the whole quarantine thing really seriously. That is to say that we’ve had a lot of together-time. So far she hasn’t suggested that I enroll in a scuba diving class. I’m taking that as a good sign.

CUE THE BEACH BOYS—

Well it's been building up inside of me
For oh I don't know how long
I don't know why
But I keep thinking
Something's bound to go wrong

But she looks in my eyes
And makes me realize
And she says "don't worry, baby"

Don't worry, baby
Don't worry, baby
Everything will turn out alright

Don't worry, baby