When my buddies suggested that we go on a European vacation
together (just the guys) to celebrate our 50th birthdays, I figured
my wife would quickly put the kibosh on the idea.
“You should go,” she said. “That way I don’t have to throw
you a party.”
Really? Clearance from the tower? In an unbelievably
unlikely turn of events, my friends Bill and Stu also got clearance from their
respective towers. Before our wives had a chance to change their minds, we made
our plans.
Granted, the planning was minimal at best. We picked an
eventual destination (Bill chose Croatia), got the cheapest flight possible to
anywhere in Europe (Stu got us standby tickets to Munich), and that was it. The
plan was to just wing it. This was going to be a true adventure, just like our
younger days.
We landed in Munich with no real idea of how to get to Croatia.
We considered taking a train down to Italy, then crossing the Adriatic by
ferry. That sounded like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the ferries didn’t run the
day we needed them, so that plan was discarded. We looked into taking a train directly
to Croatia, but it turned out that Munich was further away than we thought. It
would have taken us two full days to get there.
So, we pursued an even more daring adventure. We walked up
to the counter at the Lufthansa desk and asked if we could buy airline tickets
to Croatia.
“Und ven vould you like to depart,” the unsmiling lady asked
us.
We looked at each other. “How about tomorrow?” I said.
“Tomorrow?” she responded. “This is wery short notice. Your
fares vill be quite high.”
“How high?”
Let’s just say that she wasn’t exaggerating. We gulped and bought the tickets
anyway. So much for saving money by flying standby.
Now we needed to get a hotel room. Stu looked up hotel rooms
on his iPad.
“Whoa,” Bill said when Stu showed him the display. “And we thought the plane
tickets to Croatia were high.”
We finally found a less outrageously priced hotel (because
it was nowhere near Munich’s old town), and dropped off our stuff. We wanted to
take a nap more than anything, but Stu (an airline pilot) insisted that the
only way to beat the jet lag was to “power through.” So we did.
It took us almost two hours to make it to downtown Munich.
It just happened to be the day of the Germany-Austria soccer match, and the old
town area was flooded with Austrians singing and chanting as they spilled out
of the many fine beer gardens. Needless to say, we sampled a giant mug of the
nectar ourselves, only to discover that having a beer when you’re jetlagged, is
somewhat similar to being punched in the face.
We were asleep by 8pm.
The next morning at the airport we decided to be slightly
less adventurous, and searched for hotels in Dubrovnik in advance.
“Uh oh,” Stu said, as he looked through the choices.
“Dubrovnik is even more expensive than Munich. And it looks like there isn’t a
hotel room available anywhere. There’s
one two-bedroom apartment listed, but this price can’t possibly be right.”
It was dirt cheap--about as much for five nights as our
crappy Munich hotel cost for one.
“I don’t know,” Bill said, radar beeping. “That sounds a
little scary to me.”
“C’mon guys,” Stu said. “We’re wingin’ it, right? It’s an adventure.”
I suspect his optimism was somewhat influenced by the fact
that we had already paid for a non-refundable airline ticket, would be landing
in Dubrovnik by night time, and literally had nowhere else to stay.
We were picked up at the airport by a giant man named
Nikolei. He had a shaved head, biceps the size of fire hydrants, and spoke with
a deep Slavic accent. When Bill asked how far away from the old town of
Dubrovnik we were, we got an idea of what kind of week was in store for us.
“Not far,” Nikolei said. “45 minute walk.”
In other words, we weren’t anywhere near it. In fact, we
were at the very highest point of the city, and the old town was at the very
lowest point. Walking down was no big deal, but walking up was potentially
life-threatening for this out-of-shape 50-year-old. Also, the apartment had
nothing in it, really. No television, no internet, no nothing. There was no
reason to stay there at all.
So we didn’t. We left every morning, and didn’t return until
bedtime. We explored the area, hit the beach, walked around the old town, took
excursions to nearby islands and countries, ate incredible food for every meal,
and spent more quality time together than we had in twenty years. We laughed,
we argued, we taunted, we teased, we relived old memories, and we cured the
world’s problems.
In short, it was exactly what we were looking for—an adventure. And we created
something that will really come in handy for our next trip.
New memories.
Of course, by the time we can do this again, there’s no
guarantee that we’ll remember them.
***
(From 2007)
Our Music Was So Much Better
By Rick Kaempfer & Dave Stern
You know you’re getting old when you say this phrase: “Our music was so much better than music today.”
It’s a rite of passage, as inevitable as ear hair and hot flashes.
We knew our parents were hopelessly out of touch with the youth of America when they mocked the music of our generation--rock and roll.
Have you listened to rap music lately? Consider us to be just as hopelessly out of touch with the youth of America as our parents were. We guess that we can understand the attraction of the thumping beat, and we’re down with those street lyrics, but whassup wit’ the subizzurban kizzids rapping ‘bout ganstas, pimps and hos?
You can mock three-chord rock and roll, but at least it was authentically our music. The lyrics spoke to our generation. They dealt with issues that affected us. No gangstas, no pimps, no hos.
Our lyrics delved so much deeper than that, into our wants and needs. What did we want to do? Queen summed it nicely in 1978’s “Bicycle Race.”
“I want to ride my bicycle. I want ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride it where I like.”
That’s lyrical depth right there. The kids today have people like 50 Cent (singular), but they’ll never experience the kind of lyrical beauty provided by people like The Beatles. They didn’t just preach to us, they asked important questions. Remember this gem from 1968’s “The White Album”?
“Why don’t we do it in the road? Why don’t we do it in the road? Why don’t we do it in the road? Why don’t we do it in the road? No one will be watching us. Why don’t we do it in the road?”
Why indeed? Makes you think doesn’t it? We weren’t pretending like we knew what it was like to put a cap in some pimp, but we did know how to beg our women for a little love. It was part of who we were, and what we dreamed. We wanted to ride bikes. We wanted our women to consider places other than the back seat of the car. But most importantly, we wanted to have fun.
This was something we could still do as recently as 1986. The words of Wang Chung said this more beautifully than we ever could.
“Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody Wang Chung tonight. Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody Wang Chung tonight. Everybody Wang Chung tonight.”
Amen, fellas. Those were the days. When music was music. When lyrics actually meant something. When people could Wang Chung their little hearts out.
The kids of today will never be able to experience that kind of depth. They’ll never know the thrill of really committing to something (like boogie oogie oogie-ing, until they can boogie no more.) They’ll never learn about the gritty underbelly of Asian-American race relations (like the funky Chinaman from funky Chinatown that was chopping them up and chopping them down.) They’ll never know about diseases they may contract (like Cat Scratch Fever).
And that’s just sad.
So what can we say or do to rectify the situation? We may not have the answer, but the wordsmith Sting from the 1980s supergroup “The Police” certainly does:
“De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da, is all I want to say to you.”
And he doesn’t just say that for himself. He says that for our entire generation.
***
(From 2009)
I can still see the look on my oldest son’s face when he
heard he was going to have to do community service in order to be confirmed by
our church. He didn’t say the words, but
his facial expression screamed: “I can’t do that.”
It’s not that Tommy is anti-community. It’s that he’s
painfully quiet, and most community service projects involve having to speak
and interact with strangers. Tommy doesn’t even speak and interact with his
family. I pinch him twice a week just to
make sure he’s still breathing.
So, when we looked at the possibilities on the long list of
community service projects they gave us, one of them jumped out at us:
volunteering at the library.
“What do you think about that one?” I asked.
He grunted and shook his head. “Nah.”
Just as I was searching the list for something even more
appropriate for him, like “taking a vow of silence,” he pointed to something
that I never thought he’d consider.
“What about this one?” he asked.
I thought I must be seeing things. “You’re accidentally
pointing to ‘volunteering at the soup kitchen.’”
“I know,” he said.
“Do you know what that is?” I asked.
“Sure. They serve free food to people that can’t afford it.
Right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you wouldn’t go there to eat the food.
You’d go there to serve it.”
“I know,” he replied, rolling his eyes at me. “I’d like to
try it.”
So, he did.
We found out that they needed help on Tuesday nights, and
right then and there Tommy committed himself to doing it the rest of the school
year. I drove him to the Catholic Charities soup kitchen every Tuesday, and
every week he came out of there with a big smile on his face. I should note:
this is a boy that also never smiles.
“Are you actually enjoying this?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. “They put me in charge of the beverages.”
On the way to and from the soup kitchen the two of us began to have long
conversations about being thankful for all of our blessings. He was now able to
put a face on the word “poverty,” and began to realize that poor people really
aren’t any different than we are.
“It feels good to help,” he said. “People really seem to
appreciate it.”
When he broke his leg and couldn’t help for a few weeks, he
really missed it. The moment that cast came off, he was back in there, helping
out on Tuesday nights. This, despite the fact that there were only a few more
weeks until his confirmation and the religious education program told him he
had already completed the requirement.
“I want to keep on doing it,” he said.
And he did, and he continued to come out with a smile on his face.
“I’m making some good friends,” he told me. “I’m getting to
know some of the regulars.”
Confirmation came and went in May, but Tuesday night has
continued to be soup kitchen night at our house.
And to tell you the truth, I’m so proud of my boy that I could burst.
***
A few Cubbie extras this week in photo-form.
*September 1, 1986
=This issue of Playboy came out, costing Marla Collins her job as Cubs batgirl.
*September 2, 1920
=Presidential candidate Warren G. Harding meets the Cubs...
*September 4, 1948
=Norman Rockwell inadvertently sums up the next 20 years of Cubs misery...
