Posts
I live in a small town where legends are rare. We went to church this morning and heard that one of the legends in my husband’s life died early this morning.
Stav Canakas was Fred’s football coach in high school. Fred grew up in the small town next to the one in which we currently live. The town that made every town around it feel like an underdog. The town where all the homes were big, beautiful and well appointed, all the teeth were straight and white, all the husbands well employed and all the wives gorgeous and thin. 40+ years have passed since my husband’s high school football team won the state championship for the umpteenth time, and not much has changed.
Fred’s alma mater has always had a habit of creating dynasties in athletics. Their teams have always been rated in the state and contenders for championships. Even their marching band is remarkable. But playing football in the 1960s was a unique experience, a character builder and yes, something that defined young lives. To a man, playing for Stav Canakas changed forever the way they looked at life, approached challenges and dealt with failure.
When I first met Fred and he’d share with me his high school football stories, he’d talk about winning games, but more often he’d talk about the killer practices and August two-a-days, the exhaustive drills, the running of laps until you’d vomit. Stav’s berating of players was historic, but, as Fred says, he’d only berate those whom he thought could take it. Getting yelled at by Stav was a badge of honor. If he ignored you, it meant you’d probably be riding the bench.
I used to think that Fred exaggerated Stav’s treatment of his players, that even in 1965, that kind of “win at any cost” abuse would have been reported by someone to higher authorities. But then I met several of Fred’s team mates, guys who went on to great success in their adult lives and gave Stav much of the credit. They all agreed that his coaching bordered on torture, but they loved him for it and wouldn’t have had it any other way. Their reminiscing is always loving and thoughtful, and mixed with laughter and admiration.
After years of hearing Canakas stories, Fred and I joined our church in that dynasty-building town next door to our small town. One of the first weeks we attended, Fred nudged me and pointed as a tired, bent over, white haired man in a striped Munsingwear shirt and rumpled Dockers shuffled down the aisle to take his seat in the pews. “Canakas!” he whispered excitedly in my ear. I looked at the frail old man, and in amazement, whispered back, “That’s the man who tortured you guys and called it coaching?” Fred chuckled quietly and replied, “Yep, that’s him.”
When church let out, Fred waited in back until Stav finished shaking hands with the pastor at the exit. He tapped him on the shoulder and when Stav turned around, Fred said warmly, “How are you doing, Coach?” Canakas looked up into Fred’s face and after a moment of confusion, smiled broadly, straightened up as tall as he could, looked him in the eye and slapped him on the shoulder. “Shepherd! It’s you!!” They talked for a while, and upon leaving, Stav pulled Fred toward him at the end of the hand shake and said softly into his ear, “It’s really good to see you, Freddy.”
We’d see Stav every now and then at church, and Fred always made a point of going up to him to say “Hi, Coach.” As his health deteriorated in the last few months, we’d hear about and be asked to pray for him, but I think Fred thought Canakas would live forever. Hearing that Stav died today hit him hard. He didn’t see the weak old man I saw in the pews. He saw the same vibrant, strong, tough, demanding man that brought out the best in a bunch of young boys forty years ago.
I live in a small town.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
October 25th
I live in a small town that is consumed with preparing for winter. All of my neighbors are either raking or blowing, mowing for the last time, washing windows, taking out window air conditioners, you name it. And we’re right out there with them.
Every fall I have the same feelings of focused diligence mixed with anguished regret. Every pot I dump, I think of the weeds that never got pulled. Every flower box I take from the front deck, I notice another hole in the planking and wonder when, oh when we’ll be able to replace the whole thing.
I marvel at the few, bright Sonic Red New Guinea impatiens that refuse to die, the Lemon Zest petunias that come back from the dead only to have me bury them alive in the compost heap over the fence. I think about their brilliance and their beauty in the midst of the death and decay that is just around the corner along with 30 below wind chill and 20 foot snow drifts.
I fight the impulse to get down into the dirt and pull those damn dandelions that will not die, not now, not ever. I could expend the energy to pull them, but why? They will be the first ones back in the garden next spring, whether I pull them now or not, happy and strong and ready to propagate. I did pull up the thorny leaves of a nasty thistle this morning, a plant that had been taunting me for weeks. I thought as I yanked at the leaves, “Now is the time, you bastard…DIE!”, but in my haste and fury, I left the root in the ground because I just don’t have the energy today to totally fight a battle I’ll never win.
Today is October 25th, late in the season for Minnesotans to be raking and putting up storm windows. Most years, we have all that winter prep done weeks before now. But this year, it’s just been a little too warm and mild, and the acorns never did drop. So I’m thinking, based on Farmer’s Almanac supposition, maybe winter won’t be so early or so bad. So far, our luck is holding.
Throughout the day, working in my garden, preparing it for the cold, I’m thinking about my dad. October 25th is my parents’ wedding anniversary. It is also the day, 4 years ago, that my dad slipped and fell and went into the hospital for the last time only to come home to die 3 weeks later. October 25, 2004 was the beginning of the end of my dad’s life. And I miss him today especially.
For the past 4 years, I’ve thought of my dad almost daily, but my memories of Dad during the fall are particularly vivid and poignant. Dad was one of the most friendly, outgoing guys you’d ever meet. He made friends easily and everywhere he went. He was the master of chit chat. Rarely deep or provocative, but always entertaining and memorable, Dad knew a little about a lot and had a joke for every occasion. Despite those raunchy jokes and a fondness for profanity, he was a man of deep faith. He prayed, he taught us, his five children, to pray, and more than anything, he taught us to believe.
Dad’s life was not easy. He was an under-educated over-achiever. He accomplished incredible success with little education or support from his parents. He was self-effacing and confident enough to admit what he didn’t know, and eager to learn, even in his latest years. He faced tough economic times and failed at times in business. But every day, he woke up and told himself, “Today will be a better day.” And most often it was.
People are talking a lot about hope these days. I would love for them to have known my dad. He was the epitome of hope. I don’t think the words “I give up” ever passed his lips. And he always found something good to focus on even when things were pretty rotten. Never mushy or a Pollyanna, he just always knew things would work out.
Perhaps it was because Dad’s birth and death are both in the fall that keep him top of my mind every autumn. Or it could be because the best conversation I ever had with my dad was during that last stay in the hospital. It was just him and me. The elections were right around the corner. The debates were hot and heavy. And Dad and I had a great time discussing it all.
Or it could be because the beautiful, colorful fall leaves remind me of that September around his last birthday. Fred and I had stopped for coffee and a visit, and Dad greeted us from his chair with a contented look on his face. Other visits, he secretly shared with my husband how he just didn’t understand why God was letting him wake up every morning. But that day, he seemed lost in serenity as he gazed out the glass doors to their patio and only half listened to our conversation.
When my mom and I got up to refill the coffee cups, Dad turned to Fred and said, “I just feel so awful, and I’m ready to go. I ask myself every day why doesn’t God just take me.” And then, he looked out the glass doors again at the deep orange leaves on the tree that grew right next to the patio. “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than that tree, Fred?” he asked wistfully. “I think God wants me alive today just so that I can see that tree.”
I live in a small town.
Every fall I have the same feelings of focused diligence mixed with anguished regret. Every pot I dump, I think of the weeds that never got pulled. Every flower box I take from the front deck, I notice another hole in the planking and wonder when, oh when we’ll be able to replace the whole thing.
I marvel at the few, bright Sonic Red New Guinea impatiens that refuse to die, the Lemon Zest petunias that come back from the dead only to have me bury them alive in the compost heap over the fence. I think about their brilliance and their beauty in the midst of the death and decay that is just around the corner along with 30 below wind chill and 20 foot snow drifts.
I fight the impulse to get down into the dirt and pull those damn dandelions that will not die, not now, not ever. I could expend the energy to pull them, but why? They will be the first ones back in the garden next spring, whether I pull them now or not, happy and strong and ready to propagate. I did pull up the thorny leaves of a nasty thistle this morning, a plant that had been taunting me for weeks. I thought as I yanked at the leaves, “Now is the time, you bastard…DIE!”, but in my haste and fury, I left the root in the ground because I just don’t have the energy today to totally fight a battle I’ll never win.
Today is October 25th, late in the season for Minnesotans to be raking and putting up storm windows. Most years, we have all that winter prep done weeks before now. But this year, it’s just been a little too warm and mild, and the acorns never did drop. So I’m thinking, based on Farmer’s Almanac supposition, maybe winter won’t be so early or so bad. So far, our luck is holding.
Throughout the day, working in my garden, preparing it for the cold, I’m thinking about my dad. October 25th is my parents’ wedding anniversary. It is also the day, 4 years ago, that my dad slipped and fell and went into the hospital for the last time only to come home to die 3 weeks later. October 25, 2004 was the beginning of the end of my dad’s life. And I miss him today especially.
For the past 4 years, I’ve thought of my dad almost daily, but my memories of Dad during the fall are particularly vivid and poignant. Dad was one of the most friendly, outgoing guys you’d ever meet. He made friends easily and everywhere he went. He was the master of chit chat. Rarely deep or provocative, but always entertaining and memorable, Dad knew a little about a lot and had a joke for every occasion. Despite those raunchy jokes and a fondness for profanity, he was a man of deep faith. He prayed, he taught us, his five children, to pray, and more than anything, he taught us to believe.
Dad’s life was not easy. He was an under-educated over-achiever. He accomplished incredible success with little education or support from his parents. He was self-effacing and confident enough to admit what he didn’t know, and eager to learn, even in his latest years. He faced tough economic times and failed at times in business. But every day, he woke up and told himself, “Today will be a better day.” And most often it was.
People are talking a lot about hope these days. I would love for them to have known my dad. He was the epitome of hope. I don’t think the words “I give up” ever passed his lips. And he always found something good to focus on even when things were pretty rotten. Never mushy or a Pollyanna, he just always knew things would work out.
Perhaps it was because Dad’s birth and death are both in the fall that keep him top of my mind every autumn. Or it could be because the best conversation I ever had with my dad was during that last stay in the hospital. It was just him and me. The elections were right around the corner. The debates were hot and heavy. And Dad and I had a great time discussing it all.
Or it could be because the beautiful, colorful fall leaves remind me of that September around his last birthday. Fred and I had stopped for coffee and a visit, and Dad greeted us from his chair with a contented look on his face. Other visits, he secretly shared with my husband how he just didn’t understand why God was letting him wake up every morning. But that day, he seemed lost in serenity as he gazed out the glass doors to their patio and only half listened to our conversation.
When my mom and I got up to refill the coffee cups, Dad turned to Fred and said, “I just feel so awful, and I’m ready to go. I ask myself every day why doesn’t God just take me.” And then, he looked out the glass doors again at the deep orange leaves on the tree that grew right next to the patio. “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than that tree, Fred?” he asked wistfully. “I think God wants me alive today just so that I can see that tree.”
I live in a small town.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Kenny
I live in a small town with my dear husband, and our cat, Kenny, who came to live with us about a year ago. I watched the Humane Society Kitten Watch page for months before finding the perfect feline, and dragged Fred down to pick him out one day when our desire to once again love and take care of a precious little thing overwhelmed us.
Fred didn’t really want to get another cat after losing perhaps his favorite pet ever. Jack was a gorgeous, Tiffany breed cat whose lustrous mink/black coat just begged to be petted. He was a great and aggressive hunter who loved mouse heads but always left the haunches in the grass, a ruthless killer of chipmunks and rabbits and anything else that got in his path. He was the kind of cat that couldn’t be contained indoors, and during the winter when the below zero temps kept him inside, he’d lay on the back of the sofa, all four legs hanging down, two on each side of the back, looking out the picture window longingly. I swear I could hear him sighing.
Along with being an accomplished killer, he was perhaps the most affectionate cat God ever created. When Fred built the deck five summers ago, Jack would follow him around like a little boy wanting to help. When I came home from the nursing home four years ago after a visit with my dad, who would die a few short weeks later, I laid down, fetal position, on our bed and cried my eyes out. Jack jumped up on the bed with me, nestled his head into my shoulder and put his front paw on my cheek. He’d come into our bedroom every morning, give us each his version of a kiss, and would then move to the kitchen and his food bowl to chow down before going outside to hunt and to play. The few times he was indoors, he was always with one of us either snuggled up on one of our laps or on the seat next to one of us as we sat on the sofa.
When Jack didn’t come home several years ago after one, two, three, four whole days of being gone, we worried and wondered where he could be. We called the Humane Society and blanketed the neighborhood with flyers, but no one knew where he was. During the first and second days of his absence, we didn't worry too much. In the past, he would disappear every now and then for a couple of days at a time, and I would accuse him of being a bigamist cat with another family somewhere. But an absence of so many days could only mean one thing – he was either hurt or had been picked up by someone somewhere and given a new home. Had his lifeless body been found somewhere or if he had been taken to the Humane Society as a stray, the microchip in his neck would have alerted the authorities that he was ours and we wanted him back. But no call came, and Jack never reappeared at our back door, and when days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and months turned to years, we knew Jack was never coming home.
Fred couldn’t even talk about Jack without tearing up, and I learned to stop talking about how much I missed our cat. And after some time had passed and I’d say that I’d seen a cute kitten online and could we go take a look, for over 2 years, Fred would say, “I’m just not ready.” And then one day last fall, he said, “Okay, I'm ready. Let’s go take a look.”
I knew that I wanted a kitten with totally different coloring, one totally different from Jack – white or orange or a calico. When we saw Kenny with his pure white fur and spots of orange, we knew he was perfect. And why did we call him Kenny? He was a blond with blue eyes who'd race around like crazy and then drop into a nap, just like my dad, Ken. My son Ian suggested that if Kenny liked Scotch and polka music and cheated at gin, the kitten might just be Grampa reincarnated.
But unlike my dear departed, fun-loving, affectionate father, Kenny didn’t care for people all that much. Certainly a different cat from what we had become accustomed. He wasn't affectionate, he didn’t like to snuggle and he didn’t kiss us good morning. In fact, during his first year with us, he would have been perfectly happy to go without interacting with us at all. As long as there was food in the dish and a soft pillow on a chair, he was good to go. No human contact required.
In the spring, when he was a bit older and made noises about leaving the safety of the house, we debated whether to let him explore the outside world. Even with a cat who really acted like a cat, we had come to love the little guy and didn’t want anything to happen to him. But one day, he got out and fell in love with our garden, and there was no turning back. Unlike his predecessor, he was as lazy a hunter as they come. I believe I heard the chipmunks making fun of him one day, and the rabbit population took over and destroyed parts of the garden as he’d lay around the deck just watching the action while getting a tan.
The strange thing is, the more time he spent outside, the more social a being he became. Now, he seeks us out and rubs up against us and wants to sleep with us sometimes. It’s almost like he needs a fix of human to get him through the day now that he’s become a part of the wild.
Late last week, Kenny came home beaten up and limping. A trip to the vet told us he’d bruised one leg badly and broken his hip. Once the shock of his injuries was past and a plan for healing was drawn up, it occured to me that after what I’m sure was a near fight to the death with some savage beast, he nearly dragged himself back home...to us. Fred says it’s because he knows where his food bowl is. I say it’s because he knows where his people are.
I live in a small town.
Fred didn’t really want to get another cat after losing perhaps his favorite pet ever. Jack was a gorgeous, Tiffany breed cat whose lustrous mink/black coat just begged to be petted. He was a great and aggressive hunter who loved mouse heads but always left the haunches in the grass, a ruthless killer of chipmunks and rabbits and anything else that got in his path. He was the kind of cat that couldn’t be contained indoors, and during the winter when the below zero temps kept him inside, he’d lay on the back of the sofa, all four legs hanging down, two on each side of the back, looking out the picture window longingly. I swear I could hear him sighing.
Along with being an accomplished killer, he was perhaps the most affectionate cat God ever created. When Fred built the deck five summers ago, Jack would follow him around like a little boy wanting to help. When I came home from the nursing home four years ago after a visit with my dad, who would die a few short weeks later, I laid down, fetal position, on our bed and cried my eyes out. Jack jumped up on the bed with me, nestled his head into my shoulder and put his front paw on my cheek. He’d come into our bedroom every morning, give us each his version of a kiss, and would then move to the kitchen and his food bowl to chow down before going outside to hunt and to play. The few times he was indoors, he was always with one of us either snuggled up on one of our laps or on the seat next to one of us as we sat on the sofa.
When Jack didn’t come home several years ago after one, two, three, four whole days of being gone, we worried and wondered where he could be. We called the Humane Society and blanketed the neighborhood with flyers, but no one knew where he was. During the first and second days of his absence, we didn't worry too much. In the past, he would disappear every now and then for a couple of days at a time, and I would accuse him of being a bigamist cat with another family somewhere. But an absence of so many days could only mean one thing – he was either hurt or had been picked up by someone somewhere and given a new home. Had his lifeless body been found somewhere or if he had been taken to the Humane Society as a stray, the microchip in his neck would have alerted the authorities that he was ours and we wanted him back. But no call came, and Jack never reappeared at our back door, and when days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and months turned to years, we knew Jack was never coming home.
Fred couldn’t even talk about Jack without tearing up, and I learned to stop talking about how much I missed our cat. And after some time had passed and I’d say that I’d seen a cute kitten online and could we go take a look, for over 2 years, Fred would say, “I’m just not ready.” And then one day last fall, he said, “Okay, I'm ready. Let’s go take a look.”
I knew that I wanted a kitten with totally different coloring, one totally different from Jack – white or orange or a calico. When we saw Kenny with his pure white fur and spots of orange, we knew he was perfect. And why did we call him Kenny? He was a blond with blue eyes who'd race around like crazy and then drop into a nap, just like my dad, Ken. My son Ian suggested that if Kenny liked Scotch and polka music and cheated at gin, the kitten might just be Grampa reincarnated.
But unlike my dear departed, fun-loving, affectionate father, Kenny didn’t care for people all that much. Certainly a different cat from what we had become accustomed. He wasn't affectionate, he didn’t like to snuggle and he didn’t kiss us good morning. In fact, during his first year with us, he would have been perfectly happy to go without interacting with us at all. As long as there was food in the dish and a soft pillow on a chair, he was good to go. No human contact required.
In the spring, when he was a bit older and made noises about leaving the safety of the house, we debated whether to let him explore the outside world. Even with a cat who really acted like a cat, we had come to love the little guy and didn’t want anything to happen to him. But one day, he got out and fell in love with our garden, and there was no turning back. Unlike his predecessor, he was as lazy a hunter as they come. I believe I heard the chipmunks making fun of him one day, and the rabbit population took over and destroyed parts of the garden as he’d lay around the deck just watching the action while getting a tan.
The strange thing is, the more time he spent outside, the more social a being he became. Now, he seeks us out and rubs up against us and wants to sleep with us sometimes. It’s almost like he needs a fix of human to get him through the day now that he’s become a part of the wild.
Late last week, Kenny came home beaten up and limping. A trip to the vet told us he’d bruised one leg badly and broken his hip. Once the shock of his injuries was past and a plan for healing was drawn up, it occured to me that after what I’m sure was a near fight to the death with some savage beast, he nearly dragged himself back home...to us. Fred says it’s because he knows where his food bowl is. I say it’s because he knows where his people are.
I live in a small town.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)