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        “Jesus Christ, Fanny Brice
        Wolfgang Mozart and Humphrey Bogart
        And Genghis Khan
        And on to H. G. Wells…”

His death this week caught my eye. Rob Grill, lead singer of The Grass Roots, was not some young burnout; heck—he was 67: my decade. Ouch! It reminded me…it underscored, again…our fragility.

Back in my college days, when records played and replayed —a favorite album was Neil Diamond’s “Tap Roof Manuscript.” One cut (not released as a single) was a catchy collection of names—well-known people—-all with one thing in common.

        “Ho Chi Minh, Gunga Din
        Henry Luce and John Wilkes Booth
        And Alexanders King and Graham Bell.”

I first heard the song at our place in the alley behind the McDonald’s. These were glory days. Living with Alan and Marc, (again, Walt: why did I automatically get the room with no window?), it was the springtime of my life. First love, first car, first apartment—and nothing to do each day but smile at the future.

        “Ramar Krishna, Mama Whistler
        Patrice Lumumba and Russ Colombo
        Karl and Chico Marx
        Albert Camus…”

Some things I didn’t see coming: That my Dad, my vibrant Dad, would die so young….that, indeed, Art Lewis, (his best man) and Max Mitchell, (his best friend), would predecease him.

        “E. A. Poe, Henri Rousseau
        Sholom Aleichem and Caryl Chessman
        Alan Freed and Buster Keaton too…”

No, I breezed through my twenties, taking life—taking health for granted. Not once did I think that—could I even imagine God would seize David or Benny or Mark…before sixty. Why would I? We were, each of us, invincible.

        “And each one there
        Has one thing shared
        They have sweated beneath the same sun
        Looked up in wonder at the same moon
        And wept when it was all done
        For being done too soon.”

Today is all I have.

      “…but there is new life too, and with it, there is hope…”

               (Excerpt from the note pinned to a seagull by

                a survivor of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815

    March 14, 2007)

I once lived in a cave.  Sheltered from the sun, I’d smile, talk the talk and sleep in the cavern of a shrinking world.  My life was passing; time was passing.

The kids knew…perhaps.   They saw, perhaps.  But not me.  I was busy, of course, protecting the good name of my cave. 

Friends knew, perhaps.  And saw, perhaps.  But not me.  I loved the cave— the  peaceful cave…and relished  both the world it wrought and the solitude it brought. 

I liked that I guarded the door—that no one entered if we’d disagree.  I thrived on its dusty old resentments, its muddy new conclusions…and I loved, just loved the darkness.  There’re no lights in caves – no mirrors –no way at all…to see myself.

Yes, I loved that cave….even as time passed…as my life passed.

And passed.  And passed.

One day it all got old.  One day, finally, the sounds of silence were deafening.  I missed the noise, needed kin, relished friends….and peaked outside.

It was raining; I saw roads to repair—but there was light!  I saw my kids, caring not why I’d been inside–praying only that I’d come outside.

I saw life, even through the clouds and I felt love, ‘though some time had passed.

I left that cave years ago, never to return.  Today I walk through the storms with my head held high.  Today I revel at time, the ultimate gift.

And in a related story:  a referendum to repeal the Fourth Commandment was rejected on Long Island this week.  The measure carried only one precinct:  a cave.

     ”And I will hold on hope…
      And I’ll find strength in pain
      And I won’t change my ways
      I’ll know my name as it’s called again…”

                     (Adapted from Mumford & Sons’ “The Cave”)

The guys in recovery call it “letting go of resentments.”  It’s like drinking the poison, they warn, yet expecting the other guy to die.   They’re right.

I used to rant to Preston (a decade ago): that this person did this to me, or that person did that.  His response never changed.  Ever:  “Victims don’t stay sober.”

We’d lunch at Elsner’s back then—Wednesdays—all men.  I was sitting next to Sterling, complaining of my ex.  Silver-haired, perhaps my age, he was already veteran.

“You know how you let go of something?” he asked (rhetorically) to my silence. First a pause and then his answer:  “You just…let…go,” he smiled, dropping keychain to the floor.

     “You got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend

     When I was down you just stood there grinning.”

I’d known Dick as long as anyone.  Longer.  The union cemented by our parents, glued by time, had indeed recycled through children.   It was a friendship bonded in the 50’s at Presque Isle that survived not only his private school and California days of the 60’s, but even Dick’s lifelong abstention from sports.  From parents’ divorces to introducing his wife, there was always a connection.

Until there was not.

On September 6, 1995, pursuant to written agreement, my marriage ended.  Dissolved.  Notta.  Note further that on that day, through words unspoken by decree, She got custody of Dick.  It was a hurt I neither expected nor readily resolved.  With the precision of a surgeon’s knife I’d been cut out, exorcized, eliminated by a core friend.

Details matter not; my kids know the story.  I stopped sharing it though, not long after Elsner’s.  “Let it go,” Sterling urged.  “You either live in the problem or live in the solution.”  Tired of poison, I too dropped the keys.

I think of that lunch to this day…It’s not so much what happena, or why, but what am I going to do about it…or not.  (Years later—at Stacy’s wedding, no less—his kid approached me.  “It’s time,” she urged.  “You and my father should make up.”  I smiled at her—warmly— then walked away).  Some matters should rest in peace.  Even God can’t change the past.

     “Do you take me for such a fool

     To think I’d make contact?…”

“Am I wrong to feel?” I asked another, of a recent hurt.  Stung by a nouveau friend, I was venting.  “No,” she said, “But you’re wrong to hold on.”

.

My friend was right.

Just this week, I told someone…No more.

“Are you still mad?” she then asked. 

“Not at all,” said I, truthfully.

What I was was wiser.  Life is too short and time is too precious not to let go, to move on.

My father’d call it “Addition by subtraction” and like Sterling, he’d be right.  Addition clearly by subtraction.

Sometimes, though, to this day, I hate to do the math.

                                         (quotes from the Dylan song)

The fires of a good competition never quite burn out. Not that I remember every win or loss— I don’t. What I do recall though…what still simmers, is the spirit of battles fought.

When Hal and I were young it was “sock basketball.” We’d play in his bedroom, (by today’s standards, the size of a closet). Two socks rolled in a ball—we’d hold it in one hand, feign dribbling, still guard each other…then shoot into a wastebasket. Sounds primitive, but at a time when few had hoops in their driveways, we were not only ahead of our time, but could compete through winter. Endlessly I’d beg him to play and he’d comply, until that is, in HIS fervor to win, airborne with a jumpshot, HIS skull met an overhead fixture.

It was no different in Wieder’s garage. On a half-court more often than not shortened by his dad’s van, we’d go head-to-head with fervor. Time and again Wied dribbled—butt to the hoop–pushing his way in. “Charging!” I’d call and he’d glare “No.” (All those games…I never got one call)! Alan’s passion, though, was exceeded perhaps by his knowledge of high school hoops. Doing the play-by-play of his own shots, he’d pretend to be Phil Argento or Billy Hahn, reigning prep stars. Me? Alan said I was Ledgemont, (a school that at the time had lost some thirty games in a row).

I don’t think I ever beat Wieder. So be it. As with my brother, we left nothing in the locker room.

Which leads to last weekend’s golf tourney in Chicago….

A family affair, the inaugural field (by agreement) was limited to Jason and me. (While Stacy, openly rooting the other way, made it three, her status was at best, vague. Let’s say it was somewhere between amateur status at the Masters or, even better, an unregistered student auditing a college class).

The stakes, be assured, were no lighter than the bragging rights of years ago. Indeed, in some ways they were greater. THIS competition, after all, was generational.

Did he really think loss of hair meant loss of fire? That gamesmanship has a shelf life?
Had he not seen, even once, “The Natural?”

This would be, I sensed, a classic duel between Thrower and Pitcher, an epic struggle between the strength of youth and the wisdom of experience. I was not disappointed.

Jason brought tuning and talent from weekly rounds on the golf course. (The last links I hit were bacon). It mattered not. Out then in, we were never more than two stokes apart. Indeed, eighteen holes of regulation left us knotted–a dead heat.

Sweat pouring from son-in-law’s brow, he recalled prior agreement:

“Three hole playoff!” Bohrer announced, heading to the first hole. A coin was flipped.

“Call it in the air,” I urged, and he did…getting it right.
“OK,” I continued, “You go first.”
“Wait a minute,” he said, “Why do I go first?”
“ ‘Cause you got it right.”
One pregnant pause later, I went to school on his shot.

We bogeyed the nineteenth hole—both of us. Retrieving my ball, it occurred to me: it was time.

“Draw?” I asked, arm outstretched.
“Draw,” he concluded, clasping.
“We’ll do it again next year,” said I.
“Every year,” he added.

We walked off the green just like they do on television—not as champ and caddy, but as two champions.

It’s a funny thing: competition. When you put it all out there, some times the results don’t matter. That’s how it was in Hal’s bedroom…how it was in Wieder’s garage…and clearly, how it was in Chicago last weekend.

There’s no better instance to visit adult children than the weekend. You arrive, get our face time, assure they’re ok, then leave. It’s God’s perfect unit of time. After forty-eight hours, really, there’s nothing left to accomplish. (Unless, of course, they have kids. THAT, as I learned this year, is a game-changer).

It was the first time in my life, EVER, I’d left town no return scheduled. New York, a one-way ticket to see Max…and time.

Conventional wisdom as my play closed was that the half-moon of hair exacted from my scalp would return. I’d debated shaving it clean, letting it grow in level. The pundits, however, said No. As such, flying east I looked like some putz carving meat in a deli.

“Bruce, that’s hideous,” I heard on the coast. “You have to do something!”

Let the record show that at 10 AM Friday I entered Rubin’s Barbershop in Great Neck. (Picture Floyd of Mayberry, minus Floyd plus Benny, Peppino and yes, the swirling red, white and blue pole). Note further that prior to my exit ten minutes later, at no time had my son ever called me “Telly” or “Kojak” or “Uncle Fester.”

So be it. A gray minivan was pulling in front of the shop; the weekend was truly beginning. Four days would ensue: four days of warm, dynamic interaction—unique opportunities to lay foundation and cement love with a boy sporting more hair at thirty weeks than I had in sixty years. These were times, I well knew, to be treasured.

Max graduated that morning. From Dreamnastics. I was there. Poised on his mother’s lap, he rolled, bounced and smiled at classmates while one lone adult male marveled. He’s about to crawl, (I sensed). He’s the best looking, (I thought). How many teeth does yours have? (I asked). An hour later, one diploma on Facebook, I left. His was not the biggest smile.

“Keep me posted,” said Meredith the next night. She and Michael, heading for dinner, were leaving their most valuable asset with me. Babysitting—after all these years!

Like any good soldier, I followed orders.

“Sleeping,” read one text. “Sleeping. Same position,” said another. The third was more specific: “Sleeping. On right side. 45 degree angle toward near right (camera behind home plate).”

My face fell at 10 PM. So early? Couldn’t they stop for dessert?

We hit The City on Sunday. Ladies at a shower, three generations of Bogart, awaiting Grandpa Stuart, tread the sidewalks of New York. The latter, driving separately, was…on this, the day of the Gay Rights Parade, inexplicably late. (Not that there’s anything wrong with it).

Round and round we went, up and down Soho. Michael marched first; I drove the buggy. Block by block in the sweltering heat. Periodically he’d turn back, me trudging behind.

“You ok?” he’d prompt, and I’d pick up the pace.

Block by block. Every once in a while there’d be a curb without handicap access.

“Not too fast,” he’d warn. “Max is sleeping, and I’d slow the pace.

Finally, gracefully, we sought respite in a corner bar. A beer for my boy, AC for me and, poetically, the Old Timers’ Game on TV. Grandfather, father, son and…the Yankees?

The best came, however, the next day. Day Four we celebrated not on land but by sea. And the Jewish Sea, to boot: a swimming pool.

The water was but an inch deep. “Are you having fun?” inquired my daughter-in-law, knowing full well the answer. “Oh my God,” shrieked I, leaping up. “My phone is in my pocket.”

I returned to my seat, palms flushed to baby’s back. Studying him, his gentle rocking…he had me thinking. Was this the moment? Would he crawl right here?
…in the water? C’mon Max!

The sun was shining—the son was shining! This was, but for one moment, as good as it gets. He wasn’t crawling, you see, but someone was else was….I thought of Hailey, his cousin. Where was she when she crawled—that very first time. On land? In water? Where was I?

Max cooed and I steadied his frame. Time to rise, dry off, go. It was Monday, alas, and the time had come. For now.

I deplaned Tuesday, in Akron. Heart full of love— head full of memories, smiling I studied the box score. First graduation, babysitting, walking Manhattan, swimming—I wondered if Max felt my presence….if he even knew. Somehow, yes somehow I thought he had.  Kids know these things—they just do. The fun was mine but the love was shared. And felt.

“By the way,” I asked Ed as we drove up to Cleveland, ”Do you think I look like Telly Savalas or Uncle Fester?”
“No,” he said sharply, then adding: “More like Elmer Fudd.”

         Why don’t I stop fooling myself?
         The game is over, over, over.

Dear Michael,

You were right the other day. Putting aside my life-long pals, you thought I over-glorified the antics of new-found, perhaps colorful friends. I should tell you more, (you said), of the balanced ones. OK buddy. Here goes:

Bruce H and I come from two different worlds. He being a Collinwood Catholic and I a Heights-area Jew, there was no reason to think our lives would intersect. They did though, ten years ago, in the rooms of recovery. It was then we became fast friends: he, a financial advisor, me the financial miscreant.

Bruce, (I saw right on), was one of those guys that walked what he talked. In a world where many came for relief Bruce stayed for recovery. The same age with the same disease, we gravitated toward each other. Our growth, indeed, often flowed in parallel currents.

I’ve learned a lot from him. Still do. While primary contact is at meetings, our telephones ring at will. More than anything else though, he’s one of those guys not afraid to hold a mirror to my face.

Remember 2006, when I lost the weight? ‘Twas Bruce’s game plan. I followed his path that year—his caring path. Don’t think you’re alone in eyeing my gain. Bruce H has too. Often he’s nudged me, gently… brotherly, to get back on board. Often, even before this week when clearly, the price of poker went up.

I got a text from Bruce just Wednesday. It came as I took my stress test. Let me share it:

“God is tapping you on your shoulder,” it read. “He’s giving you a warning.” “What action will you take?” it asked and then he answered: “NONE is not acceptable by those who love you…”

I know, Michael, that you’re skeptical of the spirituality of my imperfection. I sense too, that you’re bothered ‘bout my health.

I’m worried too.

         “Time is tapping on my forehead,
         Hanging from my mirror,
         Rattling the teacups,
         And I wonder
         How long can I delay?”

I’m trying, Michael.  I really am. Just know I focus better and often steer clearer when bolstered by guys I meet in the rooms…guys like Bruce H.

Love, Dad

                              (Adapted from Paul Simon)

        “Everyone gets a new life on this island. Maybe it’s time you start yours.”                     John Locke                                                                                                                         

Angry, disillusioned, disenchanted…alone. My life was one of isolation. Fear and isolation. I’d look in the mirror—swear to God I would—and ask “How did this happen to a nice Jewish boy like me?”

That was 5,000 days ago. Today.

No one enters recovery on a winning streak. For fifteen years I’d had the answers. Skated through college, stormed through the 70’s.…All the answers. Until I didn’t—until in a world where I’d done no wrong, suddenly I could do no right. For fifteen years. It was a slow slide–to be sure– ignited when my Dad died, jump-started as the marriage fell…but, make no mistake about it, one day I looked up and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.

My father, you see, taught me everything I needed to know about life except how to live without him. As such, when I stumbled a bit, I was clueless. It didn’t take long, (what with my Dad not there to prop me up), but I’d lost my mojo. Spiraling down, no one patting me on the back, reassuring, I lost too that belief— that resolve that if I just did my best the hits would fall. Somewhere along the road I traded faith for fear and pride for resentment.

So there I was in ’97 with my sponsor Preston. For the first time since the fall of Albert I was hearing NOT the things I wanted to hear, but the things I needed to hear. And for some reason I was listening.

Cocky, sixteen years my junior, he looked me dead in the eye:

“Victims don’t stay sober,” he told me. “And get rid of your resentments. You hold on to them and the only one who suffers is you.”

“Yeah, but—“I started.
“Anything after ‘but’ doesn’t count” he harped. “This ain’t a dress rehearsal. You’ve used up your ‘buts’.”

“Do you believe in God?” he asked me.
“Sure.”
“Do you have FAITH in God?”
I hesitated (‘til he broke the silence).

“Well FIND it. My guess is your God wouldn’t bring you this far just to drop you on your ass right now.”

“God can move mountains,” he told me, “But once in a while you have to pick up a shovel.”

Something clicked that night. In me. It was a light bulb turning on, a shining moment not felt in years. There, in a coffeehouse long since closed, I found a mustard seed of hope and a sense of renewal.

My life turned around that evening and thirteen-plus years later I haven’t looked back. (Nor, for that matter, have I put down the shovel).

Sun Kwon: I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry.
Locke: [chuckles] Oh, I used to get angry – all the time, frustrated, too.
Sun Kwon: You’re not frustrated any more?
Locke: I’m not lost any more.
Sun Kwon: How did you do that?
Locke: The same way anything lost gets found – I stopped looking.

                                                                  From “Lost”

There’s this scene in “The Music Man”—toward the end.

Little Winthrop realizes Harold Hill is just a spellbinder—all smoke and mirrors— that the “Professor” knows nothing of music. What the lad hasn’t figured is that Hill’s mellowed, changed…even fallen in love.

“Leave me go, you big liar!” the boy screams.
“You want the truth?” says Hill, holding the kid down. “You’re a wonderful kid. I thought so from the first. That’s why I wanted you in the band!”
“What band?” bemoans Winthrop.
And then it comes: the line that chokes me, nightly, behind the curtain. Like clockwork.

“I always think there’s a band, kid.”

We close today. One month in run/thru’s, two bad haircuts, three weeks of shows. Yes, the curtain will fall on “The Music Man”, as much as it ever can for me.

I jumped to do this. Why wouldn’t I? The story, the timeless songs transpose me…..

We’re in the living room, 3227 East Overlook. Hal and I, (all of 8 and 10), are on the couch. There’s Aunt Helen, perched on a piano seat, pounding away. Grandma’s over her, singing from behind. And they’re smiling. Our Mom is there, (perhaps), but our father’s clearly present. And he’s standing. Certain sheet music always had him standing. And he’s directing. Certain show tunes always had him directing.

It was, yes, under just these circumstances, that long before we memorized Haftorah we learned “76 Trombones.”

How many times did Grandma Bogart ask “Helen, why do they laugh at my singing?” How many times did our Aunt remind “Boys, did you know ‘Good Night My Someone’ and ’76 Trombones’ are the same song?” And, yes, how many times (PER DAY) would our Dad, with virtual baton, conduct the band?

Al Bogart didn’t crave much. His world outside collapsing, all he ever wanted was two boys, a good Kaiser roll, good card game, Woody Hayes on Saturday and Robert Preston on Sunday. Not much to ask.

The times, the demands…were simpler then—before Trouble came to River City.

It’s hard not to think of him today. Father’s Day…the last show and all. Like Hill, he was a salesman and, yes, a spellbinder. Our Dad, though, was so much more.

Black and white, he was, yet, a walking contradiction. While empathetic to a fault, he just didn’t suffer fools easily. How true this was at check-out counters. We’d be standing there. The bill would be, let’s say $4.78 and he’d hand the boy a Five with 3 pennies. The kid would stare—just stare—not knowing what to do. Often the guy’d give our dad his three cents back with two dimes and two other pennies. It drove him nuts!

Never, though, would he correct. Never would he say “Just give me a quarter.” He’d turn, rather, and whisper to me: “His parents must be so proud!”

And he was patient—our father was—when he cared to be. I saw him wait in line once—for an HOUR—just to buy Wayne Newton tickets. Pleasant, smiling charming. This same man, though—-put him in a shorter line, delay his purchase of gas or cigarettes…and he’s grousing “C’mon Flash!” or “Let’s go Bullet!”

With all that, still, Al Bogart was the least judgmental person I’ve known. He had a unique ability to not only be real and dream at the same time, but to truly believe his dreams.

And why not? His marriage to Harriet was story-book. What better way to leave than on his anniversary? And the boys, Hal and Bruce? He knew they were human, but saw them flawless nonetheless.

He was beautiful, his cup ran over with compassion.

And he was wealthy and wise.

It is a rich man, you see, that believes his dreams, and a wise one that passes the baton.

Our dad blessed me with his love and was, indeed, MY Music Man.

He is the reason, quite clearly, that I can never quite close this show and reason further why, no matter what, I always believe there’s a band.

Announcers would point to Buckeye and Celtic great John Havlicek “moving without the ball.” It was, they noted, what he did when eyes were elsewhere that set him apart.

I was reminded of this just Saturday when I bumped into cousin Donnie. Though our paths rarely cross, it was something he did, something extra years ago that—to this day—stands out.

Michigan State University–summer of ’67. Stratospheric SAT’s hadn’t trumped C+ grades and, as such, one week after high school, I was in college. No passing Go, no two hundred dollars…College.

Weekdays weren’t bad. Living in a four-man suite, friends I had. Still, come Fridays, they’d head home—evaporate–and I’d be mired in East Lansing. No cards, no air conditioning….it got lonely. (How many times, really, could I play “Sgt. Pepper?”) Stuart and Bob came up once, of course….but….

I was sitting in—where else—the dorm room one Saturday when the phone rang. It was Donnie.

“Pinky and I are driving through. Want lunch?”

Imagine that! En route cross-country…who would have known had they not stopped—not called me?

We met that day, at the Student Union. In a booth I still picture, sharing maybe 45 minutes, they made my day. Nothing profound, nothing major. Still, forty-four years later, this simple act of unnecessary, unexpected kindness, perhaps long-forgotten by them, comes to mind whenever we meet.

Years later it was Michael on the road. Commencement on Friday. New York on Saturday. His idea.

I don’t know what he’d have done but for Aunt Rosie. My son had drive, kishkes and may have gone anyway. Even immediately, without passing Go. Destined for the Big City, whatever…Still, just as I recall his ambition, I too remember the kindness of our not-young aunt.

No one would have blinked had she acquiesced. Uncle Fred was failing, gravely ill. No one would have thought twice had she not said “Michael…please…stay here.”

Ten years ago this week my boy saw what family, what inclusion are all about…even in trying circumstance. Dropping him off, on the day I said good bye to Uncle Fred, I said hello, as well, to the cherished lesson of Aunt Rose: we open doors—we don’t close them.

It’s what I’m doing away from the ball that really matters. Like Cousin Donnie, and Aunt Rosie…and Grandpa Stuart.

Great Neck, New York: just last winter. Max, at a month, was surrounded by his father, two granddads and a sea of what seemed like forty-three women… And, (if you’ll excuse the analogy), they were passing that baby around not unlike rabbis pass the Torah High Holidays. Everyone wanted a piece.

Don’t know if others noticed. I did. Stuart Miller held back. With words unspoken, knowing well the limit to my time out east, he made sure I held that boy…and held that boy…and held that boy. With no one watching, when no one would have known…this cowboy saw. Quietly, without fanfare, Stuart maximized my finite hours with his infinite love.

It’s what we do away from the ball that counts.

I get through the melancholy of a week like this…what with the show ending, the kids away, Father’s Day, et cetera, by remembering, with gratitude, all the Donnie’s, Rosie’s and Stuart’s in my life, and all the kindnesses bestowed upon me.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

       “….Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
        Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
        But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
        Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade…”

                                       Polonius, to his son, in “Hamlet”
                                                     (Shakespeare)

More than wanting to be loved, I want to feel safe.

As kids our parents would urge to neither trust strangers nor believe everything heard. We were circled by a shield of family and a fortress of what I’d come to learn were their life-long friends. It was a world of illusion, but no disillusion. Everyone I knew was bankable, believable and…I felt safe.

That all changed, says Tom The Shrink, when our parents split. It was the beginning, says he, of my “abandonment issues.” It was also, he notes with irony, the genesis of my overwhelming desire to believe early and trust prematurely.

He told me that five years ago and I thought I got it. I didn’t though, and stumbled again, just this week. It wasn’t a movie deal this time, nor rooms in Vegas…but I hurt. As such, Wednesday, at a meeting, I shared.

“Give everyone the benefit of the doubt…” counseled Steve, “…and you’re just pissing up a rope.” “You, buddy, are always looking for a Hollywood ending.”

He made me think—my pal did. For a few days now I’ve studied the bricks and mortar of my support system. Fact is, I’m in a pretty safe place.

Blessed with a cadre, no a company of timeless friends and steadfast family, I watch them, time after time, year after year, prioritize ME over my feelings.
This is, I’ve concluded, not only a good thing, but all the protection I need.

I recalled, this week, a talk with Bobby and Stuart from my first days of sobriety. We were speaking of a girl I’d been dating, (the one Fenton called “Fatal Attraction”).

“Now, B, you’re not going to drink over this?” Snyder asked. Stuey nodded assurance: “He’ll be fine.” Neither offended by Bob nor threatened by the candor, I knew well they’d never hurt me.

I thought also, of playing poker with Walt…and the times he’d called me on poor play, questioned my illogic and taught me with caring critique.

And, yes…Aunt Helen. I paused on her too. She’d ripped me a new one just recently….with love:

“Why are you wearing a hat?” I was asked.
“I’m doing a show and had to have my head shaved.”

Not once did she ask to see my dome. Not even curious. Instead, came her instant rejoinder:

“How is it you’ll wear a cap in summer but in the winter, when you always catch colds, you refuse? What’s wrong with you?”

Say what you want about the lady, but, (as my father would say), “She’d never give you a bum steer.”

My world is full Bobby’s, Walt’s and Aunt Helens… of blessings. I need to think of that, to be grateful when, as this week, I skin my knee.

Scars heal. Even unnecessary ones. In the meantime, I’ll take a step back, be less willing to believe all I hear, and, above all else….listen with my eyes.