Anniversaries and Bucket Lists

Tomorrow my wife Tracy and I celebrate 26 years of wedded bliss. Well, for me it has been bliss, but she really merits a trophy, (and not one of those rinky-dinks that every kid gets in soccer.) 35% of marriages make it to 25 years, so, yay for us. It looks like #26 will be a quieter of our anniversaries, probably a couples massage followed by sushi.

We have had some fun anniversaries over the years, but last year I decided to really do it up nice for my better half. It was our 25th Anniversary, and that is something special.

Planning a wonderful event requires some intelligence and really sweating the details. Knowing how over the moon Tracy is for college wrestling, (what woman isn't?) I decided to pull all the stops and get an item checked off her bucket list: The NCAA Wrestling Championships. I needed to get her to New York City so she could enjoy three days of action at iconic Madison Square Garden. It was my mission, I chose to accept it, because hey, I'm a giver. 

When the big day of the event arrived, we showed up early at the arena. Since we had killer seats, we bypassed the throng of belligerent fans to a separate entrance with a cute little unmarked awning on West 31st Street, befitting of VIPs like us. We had our own elevator which exited onto a red carpet. We looked at each other and smiled. 

We followed the carpet through the curtained area where the athletes were warming up, stopping to peek, then went though a maze, and the carpet terminated at a nondescript off-white door. Opening the door put us onto the floor of the most famous sports arena in the world, and the surprised look on Tracy's face was priceless. This is where Ali twice slugged it out with Frazier, and where the Knicks beat the Lakers in the '72 NBA Finals. (I sensed that she started to get misty-eyed.)

Front Row Seats!

To keep some semblance of balance, Tracy made sure the trip was good for me too, taking me to my favorite Italian joint (Carmine's) at Times Square, surprising me with silver jewelry at Tiffany & Co., and setting up a couple musicals on Broadway.

Or maybe things happened the other way around!

We had a ball.  I originally had tickets in the upper bowl in the corner, where the NCAA allocated to my wrestling officials association. The below picture was taken by a friend up in the section where I originally bought, and that just wasn't going to pass muster.

No.thank.you

Determined to not fly 3000 miles and end up in the nosebleeds, I hit up Cornell coach Rob Koll.  He had a floor-level suite on the 40-yard line that he let me sneak in on, for a tidy little tax deductible pile of shekels for his wrestling club. It was cool seeing the fans in their sections in Iowa black and gold, Oklahoma State orange, Penn State blue, etc., creating different color swaths across the arena.  There were eight mats going, so we kept our heads on a swivel as loud cheers erupted all-the-time in various sections throughout The Garden.

One of the Baldwin brothers, Billy, who wrestled in college, announces wrestling for ESPN. He came up from the floor to visit with someone in our section, and the staff guy was immediately on him, "Hey! Movie stah! Outta heyah!" and motioned with his thumb to get out, winking at us as we cracked up. To his credit, Baldwin didn’t try to big-time him, because wrestlers are polite. (Except for coaches, those guys can be hurtful.)  

Tracy has great memories as a high school cheerleader where the wrestlers were perennial state champs, so she not only understands the sport, she digs it. When we saw #15 ranked kid from American hit a head lock on the #10 kid from Stanford to pin him in the quarterfinals, she was on her feet.  And when the #14 kid from Wyoming, (who looked more like a Hunger Games contestant than a wrestler), came from behind and caught the #6 Ohio State kid in a cradle at the end of the match, she was jumping up again.

New York City is the center of the world, so we also managed to fit in some other fun things, like visiting with friends, seeing "Matilda" and "Finding Neverland," and eating way too much food.  There is not a bad meal to be had in NYC.  And the pizza . . . Holy Cow. Kudos to East River water. 

The next item off of Tracy's bucket list? Watching USC play at Notre Dame. South Bend, here we come! Wish us luck in getting tickets!

Actually, now that we have another grandkid, more discretionary time will be spent with them instead of doing our own thing, which is just ducky with me.  Being a grandparent is the second-best gig. 

The first? Being married to Tracy.

Happy anniversary, sweetie!

Thirteen Reasons Why Not

When I was in 8^th grade, a kid at a neighboring middle school killed himself.  I didn't really know him.  He tried out for the Pop Warner football team I was on, but unfortunately things did not go all that great.  Not only did he have no friends on the team, but he was picked on by some of my teammates. He was eventually cut from the team, and why not . . . he certainly didn’t fit in.  And I didn’t give him another thought, until I learned he had hung himself in his shower with the belt from his bath robe.

I felt as much guilt as a 13 year old kid could feel, and wondered why I didn’t befriend him when he tried out for the team.  I tried to excuse myself, as I never really knew him; but nearly 40 years later the memory stings a bit. Now I think about the pain his parents experienced, and likely continue to feel today.  He no doubt had his reasons for committing suicide, but maybe someone could have given him some reasons why to not take his life. 

The Jay Asher young adult novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, centers on events leading up to and, in her explanation, the causing of the suicide of high school student Hanna Baker.  She narrates in great detail on cassette tapes the reasons why she “took a bunch of pills,” assigning blame to people and events that have made life unbearable for her.

I have no credentials and no clinical background or clear understanding of mental illness, but have plenty of my own opinions, (which I think are pretty darn good).  But I do know that mental illness is a reality which affects lives of countless people, and Professor Google indicates that of those who die from suicide, more than 90% have a diagnosable mental disorder.

“Don’t Try Suicide,” a song on the Queen album, “The Game,” admonishes not to attempt suicide, and interestingly enough, was never performed live.   Obviously this song had some meaning to Freddie Mercury, and suicide is something that has touched nearly everyone.  It certainly has me.

The novel and subsequent Netflix series are wildly popular, but I wonder at its appropriateness given the target audience.  Will impressionable young ones view suicide as being more legitimate, even glamorized, after watching this show?  I told my 14 year old that we could watch it together, but that his mother and I would pause the story often to discuss and evaluate what we are seeing.  He hasn’t taken us up on the offer . . . weird.  But it is worth noting that suicide is the #2 killer of teens, so in my own opinion, (which again is really good), caution is warranted with "entertainment" of this type. 

While the story is about the reasons Hanna Baker took her life, perhaps it is better to consider my . . .

Thirteen Reasons Why Not:

1.       I have a beautiful lights-up-the-room wife whose nose crinkles when she smiles and eyes twinkle when she sees me, that loves me, supports me, is fun to be with, and relies on me.

2.       My kids need an engaged father who will help set them on the path they should follow throughout life, and who they can talk to when THEIR kids give them the headaches they give me. 

3.       My grandkids deserve to have someone tell them dad jokes.  And I deserve to have more grandkids, to smell that newborn aroma and hear the giggles of toddlers.

4.       My family doesn’t need the stigma, for lack of a better word, of the head of the family committing suicide.  Suicide may seemingly end things for me, but they will live with it forever.

5.       God loves me and wants me to be happy.  On the other hand, Old Scratch wouldn’t mind having another miserable soul around.

6.       If there is life after death, then it might be worth considering that there is misery after death.  Suicide would only extend the suffering, not relieve it. 

7.       My parents don’t need me to check out before them, and certainly not like this.  Parents dying of old age before their kids is a rule.  I should say that when I was younger, I would have considered my current age as “old.” Which means any day now I may clutch my heart like Fred Sanford and exclaim, “This is the big one, Elizabeth!  I’m comin’ to join ya!” And my grandma who died when I was a kid, who I am excited to one day see, would be so disappointed if she saw me arrive earlier than my due date.

8.       Emotions are fleeting except for the ones we work on.  Happiness and sadness can both be courted. Now, I know folks have depression disorders and such, but that is not my personal reality, and this is my list; which leads to . . .

9.       Help can be obtained through totally available and incredibly powerful mental, emotional, spiritual and physical health practices, medications and therapies.  Which means, it is something we work on.

10.   There is no fixing things if I punch out early. 

11.   It will get better.  The darkest hours having only 60 minutes sounds cliché, but the men of grit who walked the Bataan Death March got there after putting one step after another.  Suck it up spanky! 

12.   The sumptuous taste of toro sashimi.  The pungent smell of freshly cut grass.  Watching with wonder as lightening strikes the earth. The electric feel of a salmon hitting my bait. The chill sound of the Zac Brown Band. 

13.   This is an unlucky number, so . . . 

14. D.H. Lawrence: "I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.  A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself."  I come from divine origins and am intended for great things.