Sharp-Dressed Man?

Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man.
                               -ZZ Top

For 25 years of my 30 year teaching career, I wore a buttoned-down shirt and necktie to school every single day. Granted, I wore a short sleeve shirt ala 1974, but that was just the way I remembered how a teacher was supposed to dress. Besides, a short sleeved shirt was much more comfortable for me.

White shirts were not my favorite. I never wore undershirts of any type, having rejected them completely as a kid. They drove me nuts, and dad relented. Hey, T-shirts are fine as outerwear and I have a bunch of them. However, I cannot stand to wear undershirts, and as a result, my very hairy chest would be visible through my white shirt. Those chest hairs are now mostly gray, but are still just as noticeable through a white shirt. 

Modern “manscape” now dictates that males sport a chest as hairless as a baby’s bottom. Six-pack abs are a prerequisite, but hair is banned. Currently, I am sporting a kegger instead of a six-pack. I really don’t know where the hair on my arms and legs went to, but my chest and back remain hirsute. Sorry if this grosses out you youngsters, but this is the way it used to be and it is still good enough for me. Damn kids!    

Occasionally, I wore a long sleeved shirt. I didn't mind those too much. I remember a particular orchid colored long sleeved shirt that I owned. I don’t know what it was made of, but I loved wearing it. Alas, it required dry cleaning only. Because of that requirement, it wasn’t worn very often and fell by the wayside within a year. Damn dry-clean only shirts!

I have amassed a HUGE collection of neckties. Besides the dozens of normal neckties, I have well over a dozen Christmas ties. The problem is, my final five years of teaching, I did not wear a necktie at all except for concerts and graduations. I didn’t even wear them to parent-teacher conferences, which we held the week of Thanksgiving. You are probably wondering why. All of the younger teachers dressed in polos and slacks and they looked very comfortable. I wanted to feel comfortable. Bye-bye, necktie. 

I don't have much call for dressing up nowadays. Even my church attire consists of slacks and a polo shirt. Every so often, I will wear a shirt and tie and maybe a sport jacket on Christmas Eve or Easter. Even that has become a rarity.

My wife and I are going to a wedding on Saturday. I really don’t know what we will be decked out in, but I don’t think it will be as dressy as for weddings we attended 30 years ago. Life is more casual than it used to be, unless you are a captain of industry or a politician. Since I am neither, I guess a polo shirt and maybe a jacket will suffice.

I wonder if cargo shorts would be frowned upon?    

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Last month, I had one of those milestone birthdays. I turned the Big Six-0.

Now, other birthdays had a lot of meaning. Thirty brought the realization that while I wasn’t a kid anymore, I was still young enough to enjoy life and wise enough not to make too may stupid mistakes. Forty was more memorable due to the understanding that I wasn’t that young anymore, though mistakes were clearly still on the table.

Fifty really wasn’t so bad. In fact, even though I was half a century old, turning fifty was kind of “meh” at best. Yeah, yeah, I was older still, but I didn’t care about the same things that the younger me did anymore. I was looking forward to retirement rather than looking forward to work. Going to bed at ten o’clock or earlier brought no shame. I was okay with all of this.

Then came sixty. Sixty is just a number. Yeah, right. Since my dad died when he was 62, the reality of mortality jumped up and said, “Look at me! Look at me!” It was a birthday that inspired deep thought rather than celebration.

I had come to terms with being sixty. Still, there were disappointments. Neither the wife nor I received our Golden Buckeye cards the month of our respective 60^th birthdays as the Ohio Department of Aging claimed we would. They said that through their partnership with the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, we would automatically receive them. Hah! Happy Lyin’ Birthday, sucker! No Golden Buckeye for you – or you! We get notices to renew our plates two months in advance, but can’t get our promised Golden Buckeye card? Must be corruption at the state level. Maybe I should get the attorney general involved….

We had to visit the local Council on Aging to apply in person for a Golden Buckeye card, proudly displaying our driver’s licenses to get our application approved. The lady at the COA said she would fax in our applications, and we should receive our cards in six to eight weeks. For me, the card is more symbolic than anything. If I am eligible for something because I am 60, I am going to take advantage of it. Discount at our favorite Chinese restaurant? You bet! Free coffee at a fast food joint? Bring it on!

I have grown to accept being sixty. My hair has been turning gray for more than a couple of years, and I was okay with that, too. I had come to grips with sixty, until last night. Last night changed everything.

Last night, I got a major shock, and it came as a result of a Lions Club meeting. I take photos for our club’s Facebook page at every meeting, and last night was no exception. Last night was my final meeting serving in the capacity of club president. We had our scholarship winners and their parents as guests, and since we were inducting four new members and installing a new slate of officers, the vice district governor and her husband, a former district governor, were in attendance. The former DG took photos for the Ohio Lions District Facebook page, and since I was at the head table I appeared in several of them. I suppose head table is more accurate than I realized.

For the very first time, I discovered that I was losing hair on the top of my head! It was getting quite thin up there. Now, I had noticed my hair getting a tiny bit thinner in the front, but it was not too extreme. I should have known what I was seeing was a portent of something more ominous, a warning sign of something more sinister.

No one in my family lost hair! No men, no women, no children, either side. Why was this happening to me? Was this some recessive gene from some distant relative eight generations back? Wasn’t turning sixty punishment enough? Oh, the humanity!

As we both looked at the photo, I turned to my wife and asked, “Didn’t you notice that I was losing hair?” She said she had, especially over the last couple of months. This all happened in a couple of months?! “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. Her response? She didn’t want to upset me with it. I can see why she was being so kind, because it HAS upset me!

I started thinking about how this might possibly have happened. Now, wifey noticed it within the last couple of months, so that would put the onset of notice-ability at around March. I finished my radiation treatments for prostate cancer in February. A-HA! Clearly the prostate has a direct connection to the hair upon one’s head, and the radiation traveled through that prostate-scalp hair nerve, in turn causing my hair to thin. It was yet another unpleasant side effect of radiotherapy.

Hey – it could happen! They say there are spots on your feet that affect a variety of organs, so why can’t this be a thing, too? Huh?

The ugly truth? Just look at this! 

Shocking, I know. Now I must weigh my options. Do I join Hair Club For Men?  Color it in with a permanent marker? What color marker should I use? Should I just shave my head to hide my shame? Oh me, oh my. 

To make matters worse, it isn't even in the middle of my head. It appears to be off-center. Now, those are some messed-up genes there.

I can’t wait to see what the next exciting thing being sixty brings!  

Waiting For The Hall Of Fame

I should laugh, but I cry,

Because your love has passed my by,

You took me by surprise,

You didn't realize but I was waiting.

                              Laughing by The Guess Who

Yes, I’m here to complain yet again. This time it is about rock and roll injustice. Many of you will likely agree with me. Some of you might have others you would insert ahead of my picks, but this is my blog and I’ll cry if I want to!

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (hereafter referred to as RRHF) inducts a new batch of artists, producers and other music biz folk each year. Frankly, some of the acts in the RRHF are real head-scratchers. The Blue Caps – seriously? Kiss?  C’mon! The Clash? The Ramones? Grand Master Flash? What the WHAT?

Missing from this list are two stellar groups with a slew of hit singles and albums. I am referring to The Guess Who and Three Dog Night.

Three Dog Night might be getting the snub from the self-appointed rock elite because they didn’t write their own songs. They just turned songs written by others into musical magic. They also furthered the careers of great song writers like Paul Williams, Hoyt Axton, Laura Nero, Randy Newman and others.

How many hit pop and rock hit songs does a band need to get the attention of the RRHF snobs? Here are Three Dog Night’s top 20 hits:

• Try a Little Tenderness
• One
• Easy To Be Hard
• Eli’s Coming
• Celebrate
• One Man Band
• Mama Told Me Not to Come
• Out in the Country
• Joy to the World (no, not the Christmas song!!)
• Liar
• Old Fashioned Love Song
• Never Been To Spain
• The Family of Man
• Black and White
• Pieces of April
• Shambala
• The Show Must Go On

Seriously, how many hits does a band need? What a body of work! Their snubbing is a disgrace to the entire RRHF!

The Guess Who, with vocalist Burton Cummings (later with solo hit Stand Tall) and guitarist Randy Bachman (front man with Bachman-Turner Overdrive) is another band painfully overlooked by the RRHF. Maybe they are discriminated against because they are Canadian, eh?

How about this list of hit singles….

• These Eyes
• Laughing
• Undun (a jazz-rock hit, which is kind of a rarity.)
• No Time
• American Woman
• No Sugar Tonight
• Laughing
• Hand Me Down World
• Share the Land

Again, another impressive list of hits.

There are acts in the RRHF that offer such a pitifully small contribution to pop/rock music, yet are enshrined in Cleveland. Meanwhile, great acts like these Three Dog Night and The Guess Who are on the outside looking in. How about groundbreaking acts like Emerson, Lake and Palmer? Maybe they are too cerebral for the RRHF crowd.

I am convinced that there is no justice in the halls of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  

No Business Like Show Business

“There’s no business like show business,

Like no business I know.”

                              Irving Berlin

Though not very showy, I will lead off with my medical report. My prostate cancer treatments are history - yay. My first bloodwork and follow up with the doctor were spectacular. Hurray! Good news all around. A few nagging side effects are still around, but lessening. That is also good news. I am aware that these pesky problems may never completely resolve, but hey – life is good!

I am fully back to what passes as work for me nowadays. I am directing the high school musical at my old job. Our show is next week. Unlike in years gone by, I am a bit stressed this year. My stress level is much better than it was just a short time ago. A few weeks ago, I would wake up at 2:00 AM and not be able to get back to sleep. At least I am now sleeping through the night. In days of yore, I did not sweat the musical at all one week out. This time around, my shirt is just a little damp.

Dealing with the radiation treatments while holding auditions and rehearsals was more challenging than I expected. The weather has not been kind to our rehearsal schedule, either. We lost five rehearsals from an already tight schedule due to snow, ice and bitter cold with crazy wind chills. Wednesday evening religious education classes used to end in early February when I was teaching. The new director of this program scheduled classes into late March, eliminating almost all opportunities for Wednesday night rehearsals. The usual senior class trip included the juniors this year, and is occurring the week before our show as usual.

Still, the show must go on. We are performing “The Addams Family.”  It is a very funny production with catchy tunes. As you might expect, it is a dark comedy. The kids are doing a very nice job with it and seem to be having a lot of fun with it. We are doing the high school edition, which has been somewhat “cleaned up” to maybe a PG rating. I have further modified the script to avoid controversy. There are a few too many references to intimate situations for a high school show in a small, Catholic community in my opinion, even with the high school edition. I am retired, and I don't need a lot of hassles. Still, this is a very funny and the audiences will enjoy it.

I like directing the musical. I was fortunate to have had a boatload of volunteer help from my unpaid assistant/choreographer/former band student. Still, I find that it is much more challenging directing the show when one is not on the teaching staff.  I can’t interact with the kids in a timely fashion each day, I cannot talk to the principal, treasurer, scenery painter, vendors, etc. as easily as I did when I was teaching. If it weren’t for my assistant, I would still be waking up at 2:00 AM every night. Thanks, Sherri - you have been a true blessing for me this year!

This is the 32^nd musical that I have directed. Maybe 32 shows are enough.  

Finish Line

Today I rang the bell.

The bell quietly sits in a little alcove just outside the radiation treatment room. There is a decorative stoneware vase beside the bell. There is also a poem on a printed parchment that reads,

“Ring this bell three times well,

 Its toll to clearly say

My treatment’s done, this course is run,

And I am on my way!”

The radiation techs made sure that I rang the bell today after my final treatment. They also said to come back and visit them. They were absolutely wonderful throughout this entire process. I will miss them, though I doubt that I shall ever return.

Time will tell if all is well. It may take a year or more. Here’s hoping that the 315 individual beams of radiation have vanquished my cancer.

Today is a day for celebration, for today I rang the bell.

Facebook Immortality

I am fortunate enough to have quite a few friends on Facebook. At last check, there were around 520 of them. And yes, I do know who all of these people are. You might have many more friends on your list than that, or maybe fewer.  I see some of these Facebook friends on a regular basis. Some are relatives, and I’d like to see them more often than I do.  Unfortunately, several of my Facebook friends are no longer among the living. You might be in the same boat... having deceased Facebook friends, that is. 

I tend to look at Facebook in the morning. When checking in, I always look for the day’s birthdays. I look forward to sending someone a birthday greeting, and Facebook makes this easy. The fact that the vast majority of these natal celebrants do not reciprocate is of no consequence to me. My kick is from sending a little greeting to hopefully brighten up their day.

When someone who is no longer with us appears in my daily Facebook birthday list, I always feel melancholy. I think back on some fond memory of an experience we shared. I spent a lot of time with some of these folks. Others, I hadn’t seen in years. Still, in that moment I miss each and every one of them.

This is not how everyone on Facebook reacts. It is a tad unsettling for me when I discover that some of the dearly departed’s Facebook friends must have missed his or her obituary. It is an odd sensation reading posts wishing a dead person a happy birthday.

Now, some will acknowledge the friend’s passing by wishing them a happy birthday in heaven, or mentioning how long they have been gone. For the most part, some of their Facebook friends really didn’t know the departed that well or simply forgot that he or she was gone. A few are on autopilot when wishing happy birthday to friends on Facebook. For me, death of someone I know is etched in my mind. Maybe it’s just me.

It is surprising to me just how many of my Facebook friends are gone (besides those that unfriended me, that is.)  I decided to go through my entire friends list in search of deceased people, and discovered seven of them. I looked for two more that I knew were gone, and found that loved ones must have removed their profiles from Facebook. I kind of doubt that a dead person unfriended me. At least, I hope not. Now THAT would be creepy!

I’m certain that some family members leave the Facebook profiles of their dearly departed as an electronic memorial to their loved one’s life. People share a lot on Facebook, and you can get a decent handle on what is or was important to that person. The deceased’s memories are honored by these perpetual looks at their lives, a sort of post-mortem retrospective.

Others remain on Facebook long after their time on earth is finished simply because no one knows their Facebook password or how to delete their profile. Someday I will be one of those profiles who linger on Facebook long after departing this plane of existence. My wife likes to look at what I am seeing on Facebook, but has no idea how any of it actually works. She does not want a Facebook account and would have no idea how to delete mine.

That is okay with me. At least when I am gone, I will still be around haunting people on Facebook.

Hearing Voices

I will spare you the specifics of how the side effects of radiation therapy for my prostate cancer are playing havoc with my body. Instead, I will tell you about my journey to and from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

My drive to radiation treatments are about 45 minutes or so. Recently, the winter weather has kicked into top gear, so I’ve had to miss a few appointments. These simply get tacked on, but since I am now down to the last four treatments, I REALLY hate to miss one. But as the old margarine ad campaign warned, “It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.”

Since I have a nice, long trip, I looked for something other than music to fill that time. That something is Radio Classics on Sirius/XM. They play old radio shows dating from the 1930s until their fall from favor in the early 1960s. TV ruled the roost then, and folks no longer needed to use their imaginations to enjoy mysteries, horror stories, westerns, comedies, adventures… well, you get the idea.

Radio has played a significant role in my life since I got my first transistor radio for Christmas when I was seven or eight years old. I spent many nights under the covers with an earphone plugged into one ear as I explored the AM bands. Picking up stations form Missouri, Illinois and Iowa was pretty exciting for a kid from West Virginia. You could easily hear the clear channel AM stations (not to be confused with the ineptly named Clear Channel Media which ironically turned into iHeart Radio.)  You could also hear lots of lower powered stations from all over the USA, Mexico and Canada with just a little AM radio.

I was born after the glory days of radio shows. For a short time in the mid to late 1970s, CBS aired a mystery theater radio program on some radio affiliates. I enjoyed listening to these when I was home, which wasn’t too often.

Many years later, I ran across an online article about old time radio shows being available on Internet Archive. They have a lot of them! Many free radio shows can be found at https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

I gravitated towards the horror/suspense genre, enjoying many episodes of shows such as “Lights Out!” and “Suspense.” I burned many MP3 episode files onto a CD, and my wife and I listened to them in the dark, much like many others had done when these creepy shows first aired.

I can hear an entire episode of a radio show on my way to Fort Wayne, and a different one on the return trip. While I hear a variety of different shows, I seem to prefer the mysteries and detective stories. “Escape,” “The Whistler,” “Let George Do It,” “Sherlock Holmes,” and “The Falcon” are some good ones. Vincent Price as Simon Templar in "The Saint" is outstanding. "The Shadow" is a famous one, and for good reason. The Shadow has the power to make himself unseen to specific evildoers and then mess with their heads.

“Escape” and “The Whistler” also have some horror themed episodes. “The Hermit’s Cave” is another good source of supernatural and mystery episodes. I have yet to hear a "Lights Out" episode on Radio Classics, though the sci-fi series " X Minus One" episodes play occasionally and is a lot of fun to listen to.

“Gunsmoke” episodes play a lot on Sirius/XM, and while I’m not a huge fan of westerns, some of these are pretty good. Others are not. One really odd western is “Frontier Gentleman,” a short-lived series about a reporter for the London Times writing about his experiences in the American Old West. No, it is not a comedy. Well, it wasn't intended to be.

“Fibber McGee and Molly” is my favorite comedy show. McGee’s banter and snappy one-liners are outstanding. “Our Miss Brooks” is another favorite. I heard a Christmastime episode around the holidays that revolved around returned gifts. I literally laughed out loud many times during that episode!

We are bombarded with movies and TV shows featuring many computer-generated visual effects and characters. We have come to expect sensory overload at the movies. The old time radio shows allow me to use my mind’s eye to enjoy a tale told in less than half an hour. The prime benefit of Radio Classics on Sirius/XM is that I no longer dread the drive to radiation treatments. In fact, I almost look forward to it. Almost.  

Trivial Pursuits

It doesn’t take much to make me happy nowadays.

Last night, my wife and I went to a local tavern for trivia night. With my radiation/holiday depression, going anywhere at all for some recreation was a blessed relief. As they say in the credit card TV ad world, spending time with good friends was priceless.

The food at this bar is pretty good. We had a decent dinner of sandwiches and fries. I enjoyed a patty melt, which is a treat I haven’t had in a long time. My wife liked her fish sandwich. The fries were good. I had unsweetened iced tea. Regardless of the food and drink, the company was excellent.

Our trivia team consisted of my wife and I; a dear friend from my old teaching gig and her bright and entertaining retired teacher husband; and a retired math teacher from our same school who was currently pursuing a degree in electrical engineering. What a diverse group!

The questions played to our skill sets. Everyone contributed to our success last night. It was pure trivia magic!

How successful were we? Well, not to brag or anything, but WE WON!  Hamster Riot was the trivia champ at the bar last night, the best and brightest out of 16+ teams. Some trivia teams had a dozen players. Some teams were in all reality just drinking teams with a trivia problem. Regardless, when the smoke cleared, Hamster Riot was the last team standing. We beat out teams that competed EVERY Thursday night. This was a real accomplishment.

You might ask yourself - why were we called Hamster Riot? What’s in a name? Compared to some of the suggestive or even downright obscene team names, Hamster Riot was definitely one of the few names that were G-rated. Before I went to sleep the night before our trivia night, I thought about what two words would make absolutely no sense, and might just sound like a cool name for a pop/rock band. Hamster Riot just jumped out at me like a startled… hamster!

I once bowled for a team called Five Yards West. Most of the teams we bowled against asked about the origins of that name. Five yards west of what? Are you guys a country band? Sometimes the real significance is that the name has absolutely no significance at all.  

Anyway, back to the bar. Our prize for winning trivia night at this tavern was a $15 gift certificate. We will use it the next time we go to trivia night. Maybe we can buy appetizers with it, or perhaps a pitcher of beer. Regardless, we earned it and we will enjoy it. Boo-yah!

For me, the real reward was going out and having fun. It seems like it has been forever since that last happened. My wife and I sequestered ourselves over Christmas. It was a good time for both of us to catch up on rest.

But last night, we enjoyed the pleasant distraction from our regular routines that time spent with friends at a trivia contest at a little bar and grill in a tiny Northwest Ohio town offered.

Did we really do anything spectacular last night? No. We were just a group of friends out for some fun, and for me THAT was truly therapeutic.