Childhood Memories

I'll add to this as I think of them.

Climbing to the tops of the 40 foot pine trees behind Wilson's house on a windy day so we could ride the gusts. Never considering the fallout of a broken branch...Stick fights in the pine woods behind Hodgkins! Like a snowball fight with an amped up pain factor. The only rule was you couldn't aim for the head... Sneaking bites of oatmeal cookie dough from the mixing bowl when my mother wasn't looking, then licking the beaters when she was done...Catching green crabs in the rocks at York Beach with my brother Donny, then tipping the bucket out onto the blanket that our older sister's were sunbathing on. We took a beating for that one, we were laughing when we should have been running....riding my bicycle to my first girlfriends house in sixth grade. Funny how her mom put her in private school that next year...They weren't snowball fights, they were campaigns that lasted for days and were fought with trench warfare across the neighborhood...Racing homemade gocarts (we called them gigs) down our hill. If you were lucky you had a 2x4 brake, otherwise the bottoms of your Converse All Stars didn't last very long...I was the Tim Wakefield of whiffle ball...Swimming at the lot in Dudley on Hayden pond. Donny would hold the fishing pole, I would swim with a mask on and dangle the worm and hook in front of the bass's face. True sportsmanship..Heading out on trails through the woods towards Holden. Lots of treasures to be found in an illegal dump behind the old Higgins Mansion on Salisbury St. After a few weeks the owners wised up and started kicking us out, so we followed the trail further back in the woods and came upon a bottle dump from the 1800's. This lasted for a few more weeks of digging until we were spotted and evicted again... Digging a hole in the middle of the garden for a Burmese Tiger Trap to catch any animals that might wander through. Sid made us fill it in...Sleeping out in tents and roaming the neighborhood when everyone was asleep, picking peaches from the tree in the backyard, block parties... the list goes on and on.

Love and Warmth

My friend's dad who we dearly loved had diabetes and poor circulation. He could never get warm enough, so we set his room up with zone heating and an air duct to the wood stove in the basement. His dad could grow orchids in that room, but when he'd go out into the rest of the house he'd be cold again. He'd sneak over and bury the dial on the thermostat for the main part of the house, then forget to turn it back when he returned to his room. For years my friend and I had a running joke about the heating oil bill. We poked fun at how his dad was getting carpal tunnel from turning up the thermostat, how my friend didn't need a cellar light because the cherry red glow from the burner was illumination enough, how the smoke coming from his chimney looked like the Bismarck at flank speed, etc.,etc. "What's the Honeywell set for today?' was a common topic of conversation. One day I heard the news that his dad had passed on. I headed straight to Home Depot, then for my friend's house. He looked exhausted, but broke into a long belly laugh when I handed him a Honeywell round thermostat for his dad. Everyone who knew his father knew why it was set for 90 deg., and sitting on the lid of the casket at the wake. It brought a smile to many faces on a sad day.

Sometimes humor at a funeral can warm the heart.

Birth Day

The spiritual gift of salvation is the greatest of all, but the best physical gift I've received is my daughter. On the day she was born, I went to the nursery and sat down in an oak Windsor rocking chair. My daughter was handed to me for her first bottle. As I held her, all of the possibilities for her life played out before me, and I felt the love and responsibility and deep bond towards her that somehow God feels for me. I sang to her and told her silly jokes as she slept in my arms. There is no material thing on earth that compares with that.

Divorce Drama

Here's a snippet of my dating profile, wish I could find the rest. I added it after a 6 month detour with someone not for me. Drama seems to be a common theme, and it means something different to each person. Persistence and prayer are the keys to Internet dating, and they payed off with my most excellent wife.

"Ok, that didn't work out so well. Please, please, if you have unresolved issues with substance abuse or haven't come to grips with the demons from your past, I will get down on my knees and pray with you, but I don't want to date you. I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm finally at a place in life where the drama seems to be in the rearview mirror. I'm hoping that you are too. I'm searching for a woman that can be a true partner, not someone looking for a white knight. Someone who is naturally happy with herself and her life. Someone filled with the Holy Spirit who is trying their best to walk with God. Someone who is reeeally quick, who I can volley non sequiturs back and forth with and when one of us can't think of one it's fifteen - love. Someone who is outgoing and gregarious, or to paraphrase one of my dad's old sayings, "she could have fun in a paper bag". (I love old sayings, by the way) I'm hoping to meet you soon!"


Excerpted from "That's a Jenn Story", June 21,2011 post. "Dudes, Really?"

http://www.thatsajennstory.com/

"2. What are you saying when you put “Drama free” in your tag-line? Are you trying to tell me that you will not break down and cry at every little thing? Or are you trying to tell me you can’t handle it if I get emotional? And if you can’t, why not? There’s “burned before” and there’s “afraid of one’s own emotions.” Probably in either case, we all need therapy. I usually assume that if I have to wonder about this, the guy in question would consider me dramatic and therefore I should steer clear."

My reply -

Having been on a lot of first dates, I’ll take a stab at number 2. There’s a code here that mainly applies to people who’ve been through a divorce. For me, drama free means that you’re at a place in life where you’ve come to grips with your past, and you’re looking forward to the future. It doesn’t mean you can’t shed a tear, or have a bad day. Most of the men and women on the site are divorced. Our world is just getting back to normal, we would rather not date someone who’s life looks like the break on a game of 9 ball. A good example of drama is the ever popular first date question “Why did you get divorced?” If the answer is an eyebrow singeing forty minute diatribe of what that SOB did to me, drama is alive and well. Google image the old Maxell “Blown Away” poster, you’ll see how it feels. You can’t deny the raw pain that goes with divorce, but it needs time to heal, or at least scar over. Unfortunately, too many people try to self medicate with a new relationship. IMHO they should be in a DivorceCare group learning a healthy, Christian way to cope, and not a Christian Dating website.