We don't need no education: The Americanization of Emily & one cool-rockin' daddy who laments that college has begun

He knows when to hold ‘em and he knows when to fold ‘em, but there’s no way he could help me cope with the violent and vicious melancholy tearing at my heart and soul.
Don Schlitz has a daughter, too. And he knows what it’s like to pack up a couple of cars and haul your baby girl off to university, away from my protection but not my love, of course.
Damn. It hurts.
As Kenny Rogers sang in perhaps Don’s most-famous song, this is one songwriter who knows when to walk away and knows when to run. But there’s no way to get away from that ache of the empty bedroom with the lonely teddy bears on the shelf.
That last sentence is mine, not his. Maybe he’ll borrow it for a song. Judging by what the government says, I could use the income. Especially now that my beautiful Emily Mariana has started college.
Don, a genial and gentle soul who makes his living by making words rhyme and lifting people’s hearts with songs -- from The Gambler to Forever and Ever, Amen -- is without words, hell downright speechless when we talk about how I dreaded moving Emily from my house.
“Man, I know what you’re going through,” he says, his easy drawl offering a bit of brotherly reassurance.
“I feel for you, but nothing I can say will make it better,” he offered. “I’m not going to tell you any different.”
Don and I were having a conversation for business – my business and his – when our conversation strayed into the personal.
An editor – who was among my closest friends and personal advisers – once told me my greatest talent and attraction as a journalist was that “you wear your heart on your sleeve. It’s gonna kill you one day.”
The fact he was found on the floor of a Coast Guard barracks with an empty prescription bottle nearby may prove he held his heart on his sleeve as well. But that’s another story. One of many dead friends.
He was right, though. I don’t hide behind a just-the-facts demeanor, unless I’m dealing with a serial killer or a father-raper or a litterer caught because of 8-by-10 color glossies of his act.
So if I like someone I’m interviewing, which is generally the case, I don’t hide behind my notebook. The fun is in being human.
Getting a little ahead here, but who’s counting words?
Don was wondering if I could come out to his house this week to hang out. I like hanging out with good guys. Hell, he may even have wanted me to offer up a hint or two toward his quandary. “I’m staring at all these words that rhyme but I can’t figure out how to put them together in a song,” he says.
Songwriters are among my favorite people and saying I couldn’t go out there hurt. But it was saying the reason that made the hurt worse.
“I’m getting my daughter ready to go off to college. I’m taking her this week,” I said.
My stomach, usually a swollen and constipated knot of tension, twisted and turned, rumbling. Don heard the slight sob coloring my words.
“I feel for you man. Been there. It sucks. It hurts.
“Just be happy she’s going to be near you,” said this nice fellow, a year my junior – “you’re one of them 1951ers,” he joked, pointing genial fun at those of us from the heart of the Baby Boom.
Yes, I did help stop a war. Don may have too, although he’s a spry, young man, a whippersnapper, one of the 1952ers.
And yes, I pictured myself on a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Ah, those old first-night of college memories…. Or are they real? Just ask the Axis... Oops, I stray again. Scuse me.
I have lived the tough and cynical life of the hard-driving hippie disappearing into the moonlight over Route 66 in my 1965 Falcon. Thirty-cents a gallon and shut off the engine when going down the slopes of the Rockies or Sierras. Rolled 400 miles one day without burning a bit of fuel, from Flagstaff to Barstow and down into Burbank. Stopped along the way for 10-cent coffee and chatter at a truck stop in a ghost town.
I have splashed in the hot sulfur baths in the middle of the desert and talked of revolution and politics and peace.
When I did “settle down,” so to speak, I became a harder-edged-still newsman, nicotine-stained fingers, beery breath, threatening to send pica poles where they shouldn’t wander on their own while dealing with all kinds and flavors of celebrity, ballgames, death and destruction.
I’ve buried many of my contemporaries, some who lost the fight against the demons we all confronted. Others who just decided to pack it in on their own.
I’ve suffered immense personal and professional loss, but countered with gain and growth.
I have learned not to count on "friends" for help in most cases, that a true friend indeed is rare and that most good-time "friends" turn their backs on you when you are in need of a good word or a leg up. You may know what it's like.
A simple, most-perfect expletive can be aimed at those who disappoint or betray.
I have stared down the most vile Korporate Amerika had to offer, people who were more interested in dispiriting me than in letting me do my job with dignity.
I’ve learned lessons on twisting-turning nights and almost-bouncing checks.
And I don’t want to think of my daughter having to eventually encounter a world that’s not fit for her. This was the first big step toward her entrance into that mean world.
In other words, while I wrestled off some thugs after a pickled-egg and beer dinner in Winslow, Ariz. (It was such a sad sight to see), I don’t know how to handle this latest catastrophe other than to wish I’d held Emily back a school year so I could have her in my house one more year. Shoulda flunked kindergarten, kid.
Truth is, the chubby baby I plucked from the cobbled ground of the orphanage courtyard in Arad, Romania, 16 years ago, is in college. Dropped her off Thursday.
I’ve known this day was coming for awhile, ever since I decided to let her into my life, so to speak, to go ahead and put the time and effort and personal resources into the adoption of the kid with one name, Mariana, scribbled on the back of the 3-by-5 snapshot sent us from Romania in the summer of 1995. That was before Al Gore discovered the internet. All we knew is the baby had curly hair like me – that’s why our adoption lawyer chose her – and she was beautiful and mostly healthy.
Of course, I wasn’t alone in the adoption decision. Suzanne also wanted to go get this little girl, to bring her to America, to give her a home. Relish and savor love grown not in the belly but in the heart. (Hey, Don, there’s another line).
Enough so that we gladly (??) spent too many thousands dealing with the creepy pocket-protector personnel of the State Department and answering perhaps the most intrusive questions ever directed at me.
And that particular adventure led us to a second adoption, three years later, of our son, Joe, formerly Lazar, a 3-year-old playground reprobate who enjoyed watching oxen drop their loads on the dirt road outside his orphanage in Giurgiu, Romania.
All the boys got charges out of that. Heck, it was kinda different to me, as well. Despite my many nasty habits – I take tea at 3, etc. – one thing I can never get enough of is the sight of an animal crapping while pulling a load of Gypsies down rutted roads.
But that is another story for another day.
This one is about Emily.
I am happy she is going to be successful. “This is what we train them for, to be out on their own,” said one friend, trying to salve the rawness that is in my head, gut and soul as we took the many steps to get her ready for college.
During this week, while I helped her get ready, while I spent money on everything from gasoline to eyeglasses to GooGoo Clusters (a kid’s gotta eat), I kept on thinking I was looking at the little girl.
Oh she is small now, only 5-foot or so. And very pretty. But I kept seeing her as the little girl I picked up at the day-care back in 1995 and 1996. I was working at the Nashville Banner then – a far superior newspaper to the one you folks are “offered” each day now – and I tried to get off work by 2, so I could pick her up at the day-care.
Since I went to work at 4 a.m. or so, that still was a reasonably long day. Anyway, I’d drive up to the day-care and usually see her sitting by herself in the playground. She didn’t look sad. Just remote. Like a baby who had spent most of the first two years of her life isolated in a crib in a massive dorm of similarly isolated children.
She didn’t know much English. But “Tata” quickly turned to “Daddy” and soon we were driving around the Music City, singing songs about Rocky Raccoon, Bungalow Bill, the holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall and the like. Of course there were those other songs about Silver-Tongued devils, cool rockin’ daddies and my famous renditions of “Happy,” “Dead Flowers” and “Shotgun Willie.”
And those drives almost always led to a house out in Forest Hills, where my mother, then in her final couple of years, would react with delight when I’d carry the little girl into her house. Mom died 12 years ago now.
She always loved “Little Emily.” In fact one of the last times she was able to get out of the house was to go to the airport when we brought Emily home.
Our almost daily visits with my mom usually meant that on the way back to my house, there’d be a spin through the drive-thru at McDonald’s for some fries. They were among the first “American” treats Emily ever sampled. In order to keep her quiet in our room in Zurich during a daylong layover on our way home, I found a McDonald’s in the old city, bought quarter-pounders with cheese and fries and milkshakes. A fella in full Arab-prince regalia led me to the McDonald’s. I called him Ahab.
Emily spent that evening in Switzerland running from me to Suzanne for a fry.
Finally she ran into a table and collapsed in tears. Briefly, before she was chasing fries again.
Oh, I could go on with 16 years of memories – not all of them great, because she is far from perfect. I’m happy she’s closer, at least in my regard, to that than is her old man.
But the stories I’d tell all carry the same basic theme. I love my daughter. I’d do anything for her. I want her to be happy. (Yes, I need love to keep me happy….)
Yes, I’m proud Emily is in college and I hope she makes it. School’s not always been easy for her. But she's smart. She can accomplish this task, I'm sure. But more than smart, she's good. A good person. For that I'm most proud.
But it hurt like hell to unload her in a dormitory, even a nice brick one.
Don Schlitz – remember Don Schlitz, this is a story that at the beginning kinda featured him -- remembers that loss himself. And just by talking to him, I could tell he generally and genuinely hurt for me as I prepared for that big journey. "I'm sorry for you, man."
On Skype last night, her first as a college student, I talked with Emily in her dorm room. It was after 10 and she had just opened up a microwavable spaghetti meal. Would have been too late for her to eat like that here.
The first sign of liberty I suppose. I’m sure she’ll remember her first night at college like I remember mine, even though mine involved color and kaleidoscopes and tear-rolling laughter and bonding around a bonfire. No spaghetti, though.
Guess a good way to end this little tale is by quoting another line from Don Schlitz (and his pal Paul Overstreet): “I’m gonna love you forever, forever and ever, amen….” I can’t sing that very well. I do have more the vocal skills of Keith Richards than Randy Travis.
You know this thing about kids growing up?
I don’t like it. Not one damn bit.
I may make some spaghetti and Skype her at 10 tonight. Hope she’s not out.

A kid, a prayer, a goldfinch, Hendrix and Buddy help me say goodbye to my best Pal

The young woman talked soothingly of “your baby” as she took Pal from my arms and put him on a cart.
He was going to be stored in a walk-in refrigerator for a couple of days, awaiting cremation.
I picked out a little cedar box, a miniature version of the one that holds Buddy’s remains, for Pal’s ashes. My son has instructions to put the little cedar boxes in with me. Heck, I don’t care if they cremate me too, and mix my ashes with my Buddy and Pal.
“I’m going to be 79 when you die,” said Joe, indicating that he believes I’m going to far outlive the odds my oldest friends would offer. Many of them are dead and others are highly medicated.
But regardless of the point when I do die and Joe mixes up my ashes or puts me in a Hefty bag at the curb or whatever, as long as the two boxes of my animals are with me, that won’t matter. Because, by that point, of course, I’ll be holding the cat in my arms and letting the dog run across some sweet meadow, with that laughing bark.
Yeah, these are my dreams. I gotta admit I’m having a lot of trouble now that my Pal is gone. As he’s been bunking in the bedroom since the flood, I am accustomed to leaving the bathroom after showering and walking across my room, reaching into the little upholstered cube bed and petting him. Course, in recent weeks, I always was aware the gentle stroking of his head could well be the last. And Sunday, I did give him that final stroke.
I still feel his light jump onto the edge of the bed in the middle of the night. Then realize it’s not any more real than the barking I hear many nights, a somehow reassuring sound, like Buddy used to make when he stood at the door downstairs and begged me to wake up and come down to take him out. Of course, if I didn’t hear those barks, I’d be licked in the face by the dog who could stand dead-even with the raised queen mattress and stick his brownish-pink nose right in my face.
Pal’s not here. Nor is Buddy. Or perhaps they're both here in spirit. The other day, as I leaned over Pal's body at the crematory and said goodbye for the last time, admiring his beauty, the proud face, his almost regal bearing – even though his once solid body had been ravaged by the cancer – I knew I would see him no more, at least for now.
Except in those dreams. The circle of life and death. Or however that works. I’m not sure. I used to have a black-light poster of Jimi Hendrix, I purchased it right after his death: “Meet me in the next world: Don’t be late,” it read.
I have no idea how that works. Perhaps Jimi’s playing “Little Wing” while Buddy and Pal listen. That’d be nice.
It’s just strange around here. The house is in disarray, ever since the flood. It’s clean, but cluttered, as I try to conduct my business from the living room, stacked with books and music.
Every time I catch a sideways glance at one of the piles, I at first think it is Pal, sitting on the floor and watching me type.
The contractors are good guys and they are in the basement, bringing it back.
I just wish that someone could bring my cat back.
"Good luck with that, old buddy," my son will say, making me smile at just the right time. He's a lot like me. Poor kid.
I remember one time, years ago, when I talked about my cat and my dear friend, Peter Cooper, said I didn’t seem like a cat kind of guy. He wasn’t saying anything negative, just that I seemed more like a big-animal guy (course Peter has these really weenie little pocket dachshunds, Russell and Loretta, who are beautiful and special animals.)
But when Peter made the cat comment, I told him the story of Buddy and Pal and how they became part of my family before I ever went to Romania to pick up Emily and long before the second trip to get Joe.
Speaking of Joe, he asked me if it was his fault Pal died. He said he had prayed that Pal would die quietly and not suffer. He was afraid that the request had been granted and he had given his old dad too much heartache to handle, given the many other recent challenges.
I told him that it was a good prayer. That it didn’t cause the cat to die. That age just caught up with him. And that Pal loved him. And he didn't suffer.
“You should pray, Dad. It would make you feel better.”
I told him that in my own way I do, every time I stare at the stars and wish … and dream… and marvel at the universe and at the sound of tree frogs and cicadas and tires squealing in the night.
“Joe, why don’t you add a couple of lines to your prayers for me, would you?”
“Dad, I pray for you every day.”
Figure I can’t do much better than have this young fellow, who is either going to be a weatherman (probably) or a cop (his backup plan), who has this pure soul, put in a few good words for me.
He then asked if cats go to heaven.
I could have gotten into all kinds of philosophical discussion with him. I had a deeply religious grandmother who said no animals go to heaven.
I remember the old movie “All Dogs Go To Heaven” that I bought for Suzanne after Pepper, the dog she had when we married, died, also of cancer.
I don’t have the answer. But I can’t see why not.
As I was mulling this today, the most beautiful goldfinch – if you don’t know me, goldfinches are my favorite wild bird – landed on the bubbling fountain out on the deck. I watched it as I drank my coffee. I don’t know if I’d ever seen a prettier bird before, even in goldfinch terms.
And the way it stayed there and looked into the window seemed oddly satisfying and enriching. Then he spread his wings and flew into the tree-line filled with hackberry trees.

Loving and losing my best Pal

Pal Kitty was about 6 months old, but his growth stunted by living on his own when I pulled him from the top of the shrubbery where he was hiding from bigger cats.
I’d seen the little cat the morning before, when I took my dog, Buddy, then a mere 30 pounds on his way to the 120 pounds he became in his 11 years, out for a walk before I drove to work at the Nashville Banner.
I just figured it was a kitten, wandered away from its mama, so I left the little pink animal alone. Besides that, my wife had just a month or two before rescued the dog, we named Buddy, over on Nolensville Road.
Didn’t really need another pet right now. Busy enough trying to make sure the puppy becomes housebroken and quits chewing up the linoleum in the kitchen.
At night, though, there was a horrible howling and growling outside, so I climbed from bed and went to the front of the house where the little pink animal, terrified, clung to the highest, thinnest branches of the evergreen shrub. The bigger cats were after it. But they couldn’t climb that high.
I reached in and grabbed the few ounces of fur and took him inside. First I told my wife I was going to put him in a box in the garage. Which I did. I also said we would try to find the cat a good home.
She laughed at me, because she knew I already had. The next day, after leaving work, I drove the little cat out to the vet. He was the one who told me the animal was probably 6 months old, judging by his adult teeth. He’d be stunted and perhaps unhealthy for life.
That night, the little cat slept on the foot of the bed, with Buddy. As we’d named the dog after a line in “It’s A Wonderful Life” when George Bailey hollers after his “Ol’ Buddy, Ol’ Pal,” it was pretty easy to choose a name for the cat.
We were afraid that the bigger dog would not take to the cat. Instead, they quickly became best of friends. We’d close the cat up in the bedroom during the day at first, thinking this would keep him from pestering the dog. Until I came home one day to find the cat was wrestling with the dog. Seems Pal was small enough to crawl beneath the door. He also could pin the dog to the ground. Good thing Buddy was a nice animal.
No need to separate them again. For the rest of their lives they were best of friends.
Buddy grew to be 120 pounds. He was apparently a mix of German Shepherd and Chocolate Lab and was a handsome fellow and great friend.
When he died six years ago, I didn’t think I’d ever feel that heartache again. But I did. Today. When Pal’s long fight with bone cancer finally ended.
Pal was a small cat, but he did flourish despite the early odds. He grew to what the vet called “a perfect 10-pound cat,” a weight he carried until a couple of years ago.
That 2008 physical showed him down to nine pounds. But he still apparently was healthy.
Last August, during his annual physical, the vet noted that the cat had dropped a couple more pounds.
Without going into detail, it basically was determined that he had bone cancer. Tumors began to grow on his jaw. Then on his chest.
He was 16. Too old for chemo. She said she could put him to sleep, but as long as his quality of life was OK, she’d let us determine that.
So we began a 10-month process of watching the cat lose weight, but still remain happy and loving. Most mornings, if he was hungry – which was frequently until the last couple of days – he’d wake me up with licks in the middle of the night.
He could jump up on the bed OK, but it was more difficult to get down, so I’d grab him and set him on the floor. He’d follow me into the kitchen. Or sometimes Suzanne would tire of listening to the licking and do the feeding duties.
His days were spent doling out love. Before the flood of early May, my office was on the lower level of the house. Pal didn’t much like that. He’d come down and howl at the doorway into my office. I’d grab him and pull him onto my lap. Sometimes he'd climb onto the window ledge to watch the goldfinches just outside. But he quickly jumped down and howled at me some more.
I think he just thought that since his litter box was downstairs – over in the laundry room – a guy shouldn’t come down there unless it was for a bathroom break.
My relative “underemployment” in the last three years allowed me to grow even closer to the cat, if that was even possible. It's not like there ever was much emotional distance between us. When he was younger, and I was still taking naps when the kids were, he’d climb on my stomach and sleep right with me. Buddy would sleep against my legs.
But Pal had grown old and bony. It was tough for him to get on the bed. He’d prefer to remain in his own bed, an upholstered little cube thing with a couple of openings, that was on a blue wingback chair in the living room.
He would visit during the night, drop off a few licks, and then climb back in the box.
Evenings and football Saturdays and Sundays were spent either in my lap, Suzanne’s lap or on the back of the couch. He enjoyed being around his family. He actually seemed to like sports a lot, particularly baseball – when his eyes would follow the ball.
We knew his health was failing, that he was living out cancer's death sentence. And we knew his time was getting short. At Christmas time, he hardly fiddled with the special yarn ornaments that were placed on the lower branches just for him to play with.
He used to run with them all over the house. We knew it was his last Christmas. We knew it was his last New Year. We knew that when he turned 17 a couple of months ago – a rough-guess birth date we figured by the vet’s reckoning – he would have no more birthdays.
Still, he enjoyed his special food, a crunchy kind that is good for urinary health in males. He crunched away with gusto and was especially happy when a new bag was brought in the house. His elimination processes were fine. His breathing good, though on humid nights increasingly shallow. Despite his ailments, he was as happy as he made us.
He enjoyed the small scraps from the table, the ham or turkey, even the piece of cake or chips – tastes he’d probably acquired during his rough, scavenging first six months of life, before we found each other in the front yard shrubbery.
Like us all, his life was altered by the flood.
But in his case, and now in retrospect, ours, it was good. When all of the furniture needed to be moved to make room for my piles of books, music, my computer and the paraphernalia from the office downstairs, Pal’s chair – the blue wingback that held his little cubical bed – was moved into our bedroom. He just had to navigate the footstool to step on the bed and continue to dole out his licks, although they were accompanied by a gruffer purring.
His litter box, which had been downstairs in the laundry, was moved into a corner in our room. We also put his food and water there. He was free to roam the upstairs, but he was happiest in the bedroom. Especially when we were there with him.
The cat himself, who still was loving, dropped to 3 pounds or less and he no longer had to climb downstairs or jump off beds. Since May 2, he had everything – including the two people he loved most – within 10 feet.
And since my office was relocated into the living room, he could come in here, climb on the couch, even climb on the desk and watch my fingers on the keys.
He enjoyed his life. We often thought when he had a bad day that perhaps it was time to call the vet for the lethal dose. But he’d bounce back, be happy. And he continued to eat and drink. And lick. He was slow and ailing, but in the same good spirits that captured my heart when I met him back when I was 41 years old.
Until Friday morning. Suddenly the cancer caught up to him with frightening fury. He fell onto the floor when bound for his litter box. His hindquarters suddenly failed. He had bounced back before, so we fed him and gave him water and hoped for the best. Of course, we knew the worst was more likely.
Saturday morning, he got up, drank and ate. For the last time on his own.
Then he fell down. For the first time, he obviously was uncomfortable. After holding him up while he used the litter box, my wife and I put him back in his bed. I called the vet. It was time.
But the vet didn’t return my call. And now I’m glad.
This morning, Pal’s breathing was strained as he fought for oxygen through his open mouth. Suzanne and I loved him, cleaned him up and gently dried his fur. He had not been able to make it from his bed to the litter box during the night. He'd always taken pride in being well groomed. We weren't going to allow him to leave us in condition that he wouldn't like. We comforted him. I called him "Honey-boy," a term I used for both Buddy and Pal, when they roamed the house on Rochelle Drive like Butch and Sundance.
But this morning, he would neither eat nor drink. He turned his head away from the spoon of soft food that had been his favorite 3 a.m. treat. He wouldn't even allow an eyedropper of water in his mouth.
We put him in his bed, next to ours. And we told him to go to sleep. That we loved him. That it was OK.
He died quietly in his bed. Surrounded by people who only hope we’ve returned the love he gave us.
Some philosopher, maybe it was me, once said that loving animals and watching them die is a gift they give us, that they actually help prepare us for the losses of parents and other human loved ones.
Perhaps.
It doesn’t get any easier though.
He was my best Pal.

AFTER THE FLOOD: A BOY, A BED, A DUMP & MEMORIES

“What’s the matter with this guy? Oh I guess he’s not used to this place like we are,” said the 14-year-old kid from Giurgiu, Romania. “We’re veterans.”
Well, actually it’s been a long time since he was in Giurgiu. About a dozen years ago, we had to coax him to our car with Romanian “biscuits” – sort of sugared Ritz Crackers with chocolate filling – and give more to the swarms of 3-year-olds who were grabbing our legs and asking that we take them too.
Long time ago. Now, this kid is a straight A student, a resident of Crieve Hall. And a flood victim. He’s also my sidekick on my frequent trips to the dump, well really the East Convenience Center, just off Trinity Lane.
At the risk of alienating my many good friends in East Nashville, this is my favorite locale in that part of the city.
I mean, I like the Titans, but I can’t afford to go to LP Field to see games. And I love Peter and Charlotte Cooper and their baby, Baker, and their cuddly kosher bodyguard, Brad Schmitt. Actually Brad is just staying with them while his house is being rebuilt from the flood damage inflicted on it.
On my Facebook page, I’ve been keeping friends and fans and folks posted on my own long and winding road to recovery from the flood. I mention “long and winding” because I hear that the Walrus’ old buddy, Paul, is charging $250 for a ticket to his show. I wonder how much of that is going to flood victims? I’d love to go see you, Paul. But I think I need to spend the cash on drywall and floors and doors.
Maybe you can hire me to help with the stage setup? Or perhaps I can sing with you. I do a great “Nah-Nah-Nah-Nah” after all. That and my infamous Joe Cocker impersonation made me welcome at most college parties some 37-plus years ago, where “Hey, the Dancing Bear is going up on the stage!” was a call that sometimes preceded my exploits. But enough of that. Call me, Paul. I still talk to John and George frequently. And Ringo may be calling me in a couple of weeks. You remember him? He’s the drummer for that band you had before Wings.
OK, well enough about Paul. I expect it will be a great show. But this is about today not yesterday. And McCartney wasn’t with me at the dump. My son, Joe, the kid from Giurgiu, was. Actually, we go to the so-called Convenience Center at least once a month under normal circumstances. I’m gradually lightening my load from a life spent accumulating. Less junk for the kids to bicker or more likely just toss when I join Murrow, Cronkite, Fred Russell and Harold “The Stranger” Lynch.
But since the flood, of course, the visits have been frequent. As many as three in a day, even though the limit is two (they fudged to let people take care of their needs during this crisis.)
The first day we went to the dump, as I call it affectionately, was the Monday when the flood waters really were rising on the Cumberland. There was so much stuff that was washed up and left for dead by the water that rose in my lower level, swamping my office and the family room and the laundry room. In order to even begin trying to salvage it, we had to dump the stuff that was not going to make it.
That day, we even had to ford some floodwater on Ellington Parkway and for awhile, the interstate was closed, so we had to come back through downtown Nashville. I would look down as we crossed the bridge over the Cumberland, just me and my son Joe, and watch the river flow. Ahh, what’s the matter with me? I’m rambling again.
Anyway, today’s mission was actually done out of frustration. I have been generally complimentary of the work of Metro, promising Karl Dean my vote and all in the wake of the flood. But there now is one thing I need to complain about today. And it could cost Karl the election the next time.
You see, there was a June 1 deadline for putting flood debris up by the road. And there were things that I really couldn’t easily transport, particularly a big, oak bunk bed, desk and dresser combination that was in Joe’s room for a few years when he was smaller.
It was stored in the shed at the back of my yard and the floodwater rose a couple of feet in there – from Seven Mile Creek. That killed the lawnmower and all of my stored paints and implements of destruction.
But the floodwater also destroyed the old bed that I’d hoped I could give to someone sometime. Or perhaps I’d just save it for Joe (more later). Instead it was awash in stinky mud, perhaps courtesy of the Corps of Engineers and Jim Cantore or some combination thereof.
That was not the water that got in my house. The creek only got up about halfway across the backyard. The rainwater came up from beneath the slab, like a spring, the Gurgling Water Massacree I’ve referred to in the past, and washed away the use of half my house.
But the creek did its damage too.
And the hardest thing about the flood, really, has not been what it has done to me. But to my kids. The family room downstairs was where they retreated for video games, pool, television, to improvise on the keyboards and find refuge from the adult world. It’s been their little place in the world ever since they each arrived from Romania. All they had to do was try to keep it straightened up and not leave CDs and DVDs all over the floor.
That room was washed away and then stripped down to slabs and studs again. It was a very real loss for these beautiful children, who came from orphanages long, long ago. They lost their special “place.”
They haven’t complained much as the family makes do with the upper portion of the house for all our needs. By the way, a contractor has begun repairs, so within a few weeks, I’ll be holding a grand reopening of my own refuge – my office – and the kids’ play room. I’ll probably limit the guest list to my family, though. It should be a happy day. I may invite the President of the United States of America. But that is to be explained in anther blog, another night. Or go back and look at my Facebook entries “After the Flood.”
Anyway, today’s trip to the dump was necessitated by the fact the government didn’t live up to its word. I mean, everyone who knows me knows what a believer I am in the promises of government and the purity of our leaders and their promises. So I had no doubt the government would live up to its word to pick up flood debris at street side as long as it was there by June 1.
But we did haul the bunk bed and some monster shelves from the shed and put them on the roadside before June 1. I called Metro Public Works to remind them it was there. They said it would be picked up by June 2 or June 3.
You know where this story is going. It got to be the near the end of the week and, after noticing the Metro trucks had picked up the stuff from the other 40 homes flooded in my neighborhood, I called Public Works again.
“We’ll be there Friday,” I was told. “Maybe.”
Well, they didn’t come Friday and I called again. This time it was going to be perhaps during the weekend or the first of the week.
We tired of looking at the wreckage of the flood and disaster piled up in front of the house. So this morning, we tore this cumbersome stuff apart, piece by piece. And Joe and I made two trips to the dump.
It was then that he made the comment about the “dump virgins” who don’t know how to find the right dumpster and follow directions. I tell you what, I really like the guys who work at the dump. They are almost friends to me. They recognize me and acknowledge my frequent flier status. They always leave me smiling.
But I didn’t smile after we dumped the last piece of the bed and I looked at Joe. He had helped me get it into the big refuse container. The heavy oak dresser slammed into the bottom, a sound resonating off the steel.
“Well, Joe, there goes your old bed,” I said, as he and I looked down at the broken and mud-caked remnant of his childhood.
I didn’t know if he was sad or not. He always said that if I didn’t give the bed to someone, he’d take it for his own kids…. After he becomes a high-earning meteorologist and buys the houses across the street from me and tears them down to build his dream castle. “I’ll come over to eat every day,” he says. “And you can come over to sleep at my house if you want. I’ll have an HD TV in the guest bedroom just for you.”
Of course, now that castle will not contain the oak bunk bed for the weatherman’s kids, my future grandkids.
Just another memory and hope that fell victim to the flood. I don’t know if Joe was sad, but, well, it actually did kind of hurt. I wasn’t thinking about the future, though, but of the past, when I’d stand on tiptoes to kiss the little kid from Giurgiu goodnight.