Last night I walked into the guest bedroom at the Venjohns to see three of our four kids getting ready for bed. Emma and Gabe were searching for toothbrushes when Trevor put his thumbs in his waistband and said, “Well, I’m taking my pants off in 10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 …” The others found scrambled for the door as he accelerated the count: “5,4,3,2 …” As he said “1” the door clicked shut. Trevor said “Zero” in a high-pitch “uh-oh!” of a voice, then dropped his pants and whispered, “Ah! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
summer
How My Mind Works
Facebook update, Thursday, June 25, 8:28 a.m.: Jim Thorp woke to early-morning thunder. Smiled and slept. Now enjoying the smell of coffee and a fresh-scrubbed world. The morning strikes me as a woman emerging naked from the shower, shaking droplets from her hair …
I realized last week — for the latest, and perhaps decisive, time — that I do not think like other men. I woke a week ago Thursday, turned our dogs loose to greet the new morning, and was immediately moved by what I found. I typed the message above on Facebook (if you’re on Facebook, find me at facebook.com/werdfu), and while a few people I know commented on it, it was clear to me that even if someone else thought about the morning in this way, few would ever record that thought, let alone publicize it.
Ah well. This is how my mind works.
A while later, as I drove across the county on an errand, I saw the broad blueness of the sky, the sudden greenness of the grass below. I watched as a flock of white waterfowl rose from the glassy surface of a distant lake and banked to catch the sun just right, so white against the cloudless blue. Beautiful, I thought, and my mind drifted, back, back …
… back to my days as a small-town newspaper reporter and a surprise favorite reporting assignment: a Mecosta County Senior Center Fashion Show. Imagine that: a young man in my early 20s, asked to cover (with photos and a story) a fashion show … at the senior center.
I know what I expected: several charming little old ladies in their Sunday best, sharing fashion tips and ideas with their friends. In my young and male head, this barely qualified as an event, much less news.
I arrived to find the senior center full, and a teenage boy dressed service-cap-to-gleaming-black-shoes in a WWII-era military dress uniform, awaiting orders. When everyone was seated, he disappeared into a back room, and emerged with a young woman from the local high school, dressed as though waiting for her beau to come home. She was beautiful — strikingly so — in her dress and hat, stockings and heels and long white gloves. I set my notebook aside and began to take snapshots.
As I recall, three or four young ladies took turns wearing fashions from the 1920s through the ’50s, and the older men and women laughed and applauded as the years fell away from their eyes. It was magical, and I tried to look at things differently afterward.
That is what I remembered as I drove across the county and back, and when I returned to my computer, I typed: Update: She’s dressed now — powder blue dress and matching pillbox, with a string of pearls and a shocking green clutch. Watch her out your window; she’s really quite something …
Ah well. This is how my mind works.
Top-Heavy
They say a child’s head grows to approximately 80 percent of it’s full size during the first year of life. If this is true, I must’ve cast a shadow like a Tootsie Pop as a child. There was a period as a baby during which I couldn’t hold up my head — try as they might, my folks couldn’t keep it off my shoulder. they would prop it up, and slowly, slowly, it would drop back down.
Developmental problem? Yeah. Too much head for my neck.
When I tried out for the high-school freshman football team in 1988, I weighed 125 pounds soaking wet, and only one helmet was left in the equipment room that would fit my head: an ancient, battered monstrosity with a lineman’s face mask that extended downward to protect a player’s throat, as well. It sat so far back on my head that I looked through the crossbars. The next fall we all got Air Helmets, with inflatable rubber bladders that allowed you to custom-fit them to your head. I received an extra-large helmet — and no air for the bladders.
I have a seriously large head. Not the biggest in the world. But probably the biggest you’ve seen …
It wasn’t until I took a summer job at Wall Drug after my second year of college that I understand the magnitude of the problem above my shoulders. I worked in the boot department, and occasionally would drift into the hat and western wear area to flirt with this gal, Jodi, who worked there. Her colleague, Cindy, tried to fit me for a hat one afternoon, and discovered there was only one hat in the place that fit me: a silver belly derby, size 8 long oval.
Let’s break that down:
- Silver belly is kind of a pale ghost gray or off-white. My friend Jinglebob says real cowboy hats can be any color, as long as they’re black or silver belly.
- A derby is, well, something like this. About what you’d expect a greenhorn Yalie to wear out West …
- Size 8 is big. Darn big. According to The Hat Site, the average adult male human head is about a 7 1/4, which is a circumference of about 22 3/4 inches or 58 cm. My head is a little more that 25 inches, or 64 cm, around. This makes it, in The Hat Site’s estimation, “Probably the largest head size you will ever find …”
- “Long oval” means I put the “egg” in “egghead.” Look at me from the front (now that I have, um, filled out in my thirties) and my head looks like a relatively normal grown man’s head. Look at me from the side, and it looks like a shaggy watermelon.
Size 8 long oval. This explains, with data, why they called me Warrior Dome during football season (claiming that we could suspend my helmet over the field in inclement weather and play beneath it) and simply Hed in the off season (which actually became my cartoonist alias for awhile in our underground student newspaper, Smoke Signals).
It also explains why, years later, when Bren, Gabe, and I decided to go to a Yankees game, I had to special-order a Yankees cap — and why it fits comfortably on my head, but has since stretched itself shapeless, front to back. It explains why the top item on my Christmas list last year was essentially a $30 stocking cap — the first I’ve found that would fit my head without stretching so thin that the wind whistled through it to chill my ears.
And it explains why, at a St. Paul Saints game a couple weeks back, I bought a cap for a team I had yet to see play ball. See, the Saints carry size 8 ball caps on site, and by some miracle of design, they shape themselves perfectly to my head, unlike the premium-priced New Era caps produced for Major League Baseball teams. For the first time since grade school, I have a cap that holds its shape (and doesn’t look like a yarmulke) on my head. The color’s nice; the logo’s classy; the tickets are cheap; and the games, kid friendly. I’m a Saints fan now. Sometimes a cap earns team loyalty, and not vice versa.
Trevvy On The Verge
Our youngest turned five on Sunday. Hard to believe he’s headed to kindergarten in the fall. In lieu of photos, here are a few written snapshots from the weekend.
* * * * *
Dozens of boisterous children are shouting, giggling, scrambling over the intricate jungle gym playground at the campground where our church group was staying. Above the din, a lone low growl rises to a roar. The small knot of grownups I’m standing in turns to stare as Trevor mounts the tallest tower. He throws his head back, pounds his chest, and roars at the trees and the sky and no one in particular.
* * * * *
It’s bed time, and Trevor and I go into a single bathroom to brush and get ready for bed. Trevor has to pee, and there is no divider between the sink and the stool.
“Dad,” he says, his voice dramatic, “DON’T … LOOK … to the SIDE!”
I smile and shake my head. “Alright, little man,” I say. “But we’re both guys here, so it’s not that big of a deal.”
He thinks a second, then says, “OK, Dad — LOOK … to the SIDE!”
I glance to the left. Trevvy is grinning up at me, peeing with remarkable accuracy as he does so.
“See?” he says. “That’s why you’re not supposed to look to the side!”
* * * * *
On the way home from the camp on Sunday afternoon, we’re asking Trevor what he would like for his birthday dinner. The menu: stringy spaghetti noodles (you know, the ones that look like lines), grapes and spinach (for the people who don’t want grapes), and garlic bread.* For dessert: brownies with white frosting and red and blue sprinkles.
* * * * *
We went to Mass after spaghetti and garlic bread and before brownies and presents. It’s been a busy weekend, and Trevvy falls asleep in minutes. He’s our preschooler on the verge, stretched full length on the hard wooden pew, peacefully sucking his thumb …
* * * * *
* Trevor genuinely likes fresh spinach, and eats it as finger food, leaf by leaf.
Gabe’s Twisted Sense of Humor
We’re at Bren’s baseball game, with our backs to the high-school girls’ softball team. Behind us: PING!, then “Heads up!” A fluorescent yellow softball rockets over the backstop behind us, over our heads, and slams into the fence around the ball field in front of us.
“Wow!” I say.
“They shouldn’t say, ‘Heads up,'” says Gabe, “because if you stick your head up …” — and he extends his neck as high as it will go — “… you have a better chance of getting hit by the ball.”
I smile and nod. “Maybe they should say, ‘Duck and cover!'” I suggest.
“Yeah,” says Gabe, “and then it’s like you grab a little kid to duck under!” … and he laughs and laughs.
Archangel Stomp 