Straddling the Great Divide!

I'm 50 years old.  There, I said it.  I've been in denial for far too long.  And it's not denial of this sort;

No, I've been holding back from admitting it for far too long and it feels good to finally get it off my chest.  I feel like I've joined the ranks of FA (Fifty-somethings Anonymous) rather than the dubious fraternity of Alpha Alpha Rho Pi.  I mean, my birth certificate says I'm 50 and my driver's license says I'm 50.  However the mirror - most of the time - doesn't show me 50 (I still have almost all of my hair, not much grey, I can still bend over and touch the floor and do the splits) and I certainly don't feel 50.  My wife likes to say that I'm still a 17-year-od boy (and not always in a good way) and some might accuse me of having a case of Peter Pan syndrome.  But the truth of the matter is that I really don't feel my age - especially when I compare myself to most other 50-something men I know.

But there are those moments when I realize I am straddling the great divide.  Not like I did last summer;

when I reached the top of Wolf Creek Pass, nor is it quite like the great Colossus of Rhodes we see pictured above.  But I AM now at the halfway point of my life.  As I fully intend to live at least 100 years this is it, just as the song says, "halftime goes by, suddenly you're wise";



To ease me into the midway point of my life wew celebrated my birthday WEEKEND with not just one day of having fun, but FOUR days of fun.  It started with me conducting "God Bless America" with the Ocean Avenue 4th and 5th graders at the Long Island Ducks Friday night.  It was rainy and completely dreary so we decided to skip the beginning of the game (we actually were watching it online until we knew the third inning started) so we timed it to get there at the bottom of the fifth inning.  There were only about 300 in attendance and it was cold but William and James had a great time and the small group of kids sounded great! 

On Saturday it was pouring so I couldn't go out for a ride.  So instead the family and I continued to "get our geek on" and watched two and a half Star Trek movies - last half of The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, and The Final Frontier! Oh, and we managed to squeeze in an epic game of Risk!  The end result was that I was the Supreme Ruler of the World.  Too bad Amy still doesn't recognize that fact.

Sunday was a rather incredible day as it began with a snuggle in bed with one of the Connor progeny and the other making Challa bread French Toast for us in the kitchen.  In the afternoon I was able to engage in my yearly ritual - riding one mile for every year of my existence!  This time I did the 50 miles in LESS THAN THREE HOURS - How's that for a guy whose life is half way over?!?!  After cleaning up we got to watch some more Star Trek with the whole family (The Undiscovered Country) and I finally got to watch the first Lord of the Rings movie with Sarah.  Of course the ultimate irony was that a call came in and since I hadn't gone on any all weekend I decided I should go.  I only wish we could have fit in a game of D&D to totally get my 17-year-old geek on but that would require a dungeon master, which we didn't have at hand.

And then there was today!  The great climactic day of my full weekend celebration.  Due to various scheduling problems (it is Memorial Day weekend) we weren't able to have a party here this weekend so the entire Village of Northport threw me a party instead.  Okay, not really but today is Memorial Day and it IS my birthday and there is a parade!  As a member of the Northport Fire Department I get the honor and priviledge of marching in the various parades.  So I dressed up today in my Class A uniform and headed down to the station.  I was one of the lucky few who got to ride up onto the staging area on 2-9-2 which is our 1938 Mack pumper truck.  We got to ride on the running board holding on to the rails just like they did in the days of yore and we waved to the kids on the street.  It was such a great way to start the day!

When we were getting ready to march one of the chiefs told me to take one of the flags so it ended up that I had the honor of being one of two people who led the fire departement down Main street to the town park for the parade.  I was leading with Will Scherr (another probie) and it was high school all over again.  You see, Will is about six inches taller than me and it brought to mind memories of Ed Trevorrow and I playing the sousaphone together in the marching band.  Ed was also six inches taller than me - at least this way with Will being taller the American flag was taller than the Village of Northport flag - as it should be. 

So I marched the parade with the honor of leading the department and as I marched I pretended all the cheers were for me in honor of my birthday.  Then, as a flag beareer I was part of th ecolor guard that stood up in fornt of the whole village at the town park as part of the Memorial Day observance.  It was really a great feeling to represent my department, my village and my country in such a huge undertaking.

Then it was time to party!!!  The NFD threw a big bar-b-que for the department members and their families back at the station so as soon as I started walking back I called the family and told them to meet me.  For some reason it was taking a long time for them to get there so I decided to go ahead and start eating and so I sat down and bonded with some of the more senior members of the department.  Finally Amy and the kids showed up and after the kids had something to eat Amy disappeared - that should have been my second clue.  I turned around and Amy was bringing out a huge sheet cake and she got everyone to start singing "Happy Birthday" - if I wasn't sure if people knew it was my birthday before, they sure knew it now!!!!  Apparently she had cleared it with the chiefs before hand and that's why she was late - they had to pick up the cake at Stop and Shop!  If my fellow members didn't know I was a member of AARP before, they do now!  And you know what?  I'm okay with that now.  I don't look my age, I don't feel my age, and once again Amy will tell you I don't act my age.

And then there was birthday dinner.  Despite the fact I had consumed hamburgers, the plan was to go to Smokaburger for dinner.  However as we were parked outside we thought, "what about 5 Guys?"  So, after the long trek to 5 Guys we get in and realize there was nothing for Sarah to eat.  So we pile back in the car and head back to Smokaburger. While there we realize we should just get it to go so we could watch yet another Star Trek, The Final Frontier.  So we get it to go and becuase we were so starved we ended up with a veritable Smokaburger Smorgasborg, i.e., too much food!  But before dessert (more cake) I got some of the best presents I've ever received from my wonderful family.  From the kids I received the lego Ambulance and bicycle set to commemorate the accident that ended my last Gold Coast attempt..  For those of you unfamiliar with your Lego Encyclopedia it looks like this;

Now whether I'm supposed to be the guy on the bike or the EMT I'm not sure.  But we did discover that I can put the EMT on the bike and I can be part of the bike patrol!  And my lovely bride gave me my very own blue light (yes, folks I am a K-Mart special) for going on calls.  It really isn't something I need most of the time but it will be very helpful when I need to get to Station 1 at night and people are moving slowly.  So my gifts were really all about being an EMS provider, now to go on some calls!

But the kids' gift reminded me of a very important aspect - to keep being a kid.  But maybe that's okay.  In the days leading up to this weekend I was feeling sort of depressd that we weren't having a 50th birthday party (a long sotry - another blog entry in itself) and I was feeling fatalistic about the big 5-0 (and it wasn't even the Hawaiin variety).  Of course the fatalism may just be the Irish in me;

I've also been reading (and sometimes reciting) "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" which has been one of my favorite pieces of poetry since I was 22-years-old yet I never really "got" it until now.  Of course, I'm not sure anyone ever gets all of T.S. Eliots seminal work but now after almost 30 years I sort of get it.  Really.  There are those days when I particularly feel the line "I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled...."  I think especially after 8700 miles on the bike in the last year my legs and spine definitely feel shorter.  And yes, there are times when in my dreams I do hear "the mermaids singing each to each".  And I do have those moments when I regret the things I have not done and the dreams I did not follow.  But I'm also in a very good place right now and I have a really good life and an amazing family.  I have the next half of my life to make up for not being as good a father/husband as I should have been the first.

I guess the main hting is that I still feel young(ish).  Part of that I attribute to mykids - they keep me young as I try to keep up with them.  They remind me of what my life is supposed to be about.  It's not always easy to remember but I am trying.  As long as I can try to stay young at heart, I'm hoping to stay young(er) in body.  As someone once said, you do have to grow older, but you don't have to grow up.  So if I'm going to live another 50 years, I guess this begins my second childhood.  Now where's the cheerios?!?

Stay well all of you - I'll see you on the road (fortunately this time around without training wheels).

Why I Still Wear Yellow

About four weeks ago my Livestrong bracelet broke.  "No problem," I thought to myself, "I'll just go and get another one out of my drawer."  You see, every since my sister Angela was diagnosed with cancer in 2005 I've worn one of these bracelets to support her in her fight against cancer.  When my mother and two other sisters also contracted other cancers within the next two years I vowed I would never stop wearing one until this horrible disease was beaten. 

That was the year Connor's Army was born and I vowed that I would do something to help not only my family but others in their own fights against cancer to show my gratitude for my own family's successful struggles with the disease.  I would always manage to buy a few at a time thinking if one broke I could then instantly replace it.   The disease has not yet been eradicated (like it's predecessor polio) so I'm still wearing my bracelet.  As a matter of fact, when we decided to begin our very first Connor's Army fundraiser I chose yellow as the color of our jerseys because it would match the bracelet!

I know, sounds stupid right?  I mean, I have always liked yellow, even though it's not the artsiest of colors and can make you look jaundiced if you don't have just the right skin tone.  Nevertheless, I have always liked it even though as a theatre person my wardrobe tends to runs to various shades of black.   To me yellos is a happy color, a color of rebirth and sunlight, a color of hope. If you go to Color Wheel Pro and look up their interpretations of color, they state that yellow is;

Yellow is the color of sunshine. It's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy. Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy.

"What," you may be asking yourself, "is your point and what has precipitated this color rant/meandering mental migration?"  Well, you see it all started about two weeks ago when I realized that the replacement bracelet I had put on to replace the Livestrong bracelet that had broken two weeks previously was not an adult-sized bracelt.  It was a child's, one that I had bought for the kids to wear if they decided they wanted to wear one like daddy.  Unfortunately, my children tend to run on the small size (genetics, go figure) so the youth bracelets don't fit them.  Soooo, I put them in the drawer with the other bracelets for safe keeping thinking they would be there if the kids ever wanted them.   Of course, completely forgetting that fact, when I broke my latest one I just reached in and put it on.  I figured that since I was a "slightly" built individual it would be fine.   Well, after two weeks of struggling with it tangling up in everything and cutting off my circulation I decided I needed an adult, the youth was cutting it (hmmm, is that philosophical or what - but more on that in another post).

Now I tend to go through one of these bracelets every eight to twelve months due to the fact that I never take them off - I sweat in them, stretch them over my jerseys when I ride,  When I first made my decision to wear one always I bought eight of them from a local bike shop - five adult and three youth.  So naturally, when I realized I was completely out of adult Livestrong bracelets I went to the LBS (local bike shop) where I originally purchased them only to be told, "Sorry dude, we don't carry those anymore."  Undeterred, I went to another bike shop and got the same response.  So I went to a third, another negative response.  It wasn't until I went to the fourth bike shop and was told not only did they plan on not stocking them but I was asked, "Why would you want to wear that piece of crap anyway?  Armstrong's just a big cheater who got caught!"

Well, instead of getting into a big philosophical argument with this idiot (becasue even idiots are entitled to their wrong beliefs), I thanked him and left.  What spurred me to lots of introspective brain meanderings was the fact that this counter jockey's point of view is not a solitary one.  There are many editorials out there decrying Lance Armstrong's cheating ways and how it denigrates every cancer survivor by even coming near one, much less wearing one.  There are thousands of blog entries out there that speak of the evil intent behind Nike's continuing to sell the bands and support the Livestrong Foundation, as if it is some corporate conspiracy to use the proceeds from the continued sale of these bracelets to somehow buy respectability.  Indeed, an article on the Wristbands.com website gives a few ideas of how they can be altered to "more honestly" represent the idea behind the bands.

To hell with all of you!  Sorry, my blog, I can say what I want.  I don't wear the wristband because I support Nike or because I am convinced of Lance Armstrong's innocence.  It is beyond refute that he did use banned substance to win at cycling;



Now people are still arguing about whether or not this was a true confession.   In my own faith confession (or reconciliation) is one of the holy sacraments (baptism, communion, reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, annointing of the sick).  In an article on AmericanCatholic.org it makes very clear that three things are required of a penitent in order to receive the sacrament of reconciliation (or confession) worthily:

1. He must be contrite—or, in other words, sorry for his sins.
2. He must confess those sins fully, in kind and in number.
3. He must be willing to do penance and make amends for his sins.

There are those who will say that he didn't fulfill the first part and no one is very sure if he is going to do the third.

I'm not going to defend what he did as an athlete.  Did I think he was incredibly awesome on the bike?  Yes.  Did I somehow secretly get motivated by watching videos of him race?  Yes.  Were there moments in my deluded state where I secretly thought, "Hey, he came back from cancer and raced, maybe I could start racing too!"  Yes.  Did I like to cheer for a fellow Texan?  HELL Yes!  Did I refuse to believe he could have used drugs to cheat after all the drugs that were pumped through him during chemo?  You better believe it.  Was I incredibly dissappointed and let down when I watched the above interview and heard him finally "come clean"?  Absolutely.

But I don't wear the yellow bracelet for him.  Say what you want about his cheating, doing anything to win mentality.  But he has done an incredible amount of good for the cancer community.  So many have been helped becuase of the foundation he began and his advocacy.  As a cancer suvivor he brought the spotlight on this disease and got corporate America to begin to invest in eradicating this disease.  So for that alone I am grateful to Lance Armstrong for what he has done to help the fight against cancer.  The Livestrong Foundation is still advocating for those battling this disease and Lance Armstrong is no longer involved in the operation of the organization. 

No, I wear the bracelet for my sisters, my mother, the children of Sunrise, my friends and all those I met along the Ride Across America who have battled or are battling this disease. I wear the band in support for them. I ride in yellow in support for the people who don't even know they have the disease and will soon be fighting their own battle. Current estimates are that 35,000 a day will be diagnosed with cancer. I wear yellow to lend them my strength in their fight. 

And I look forward to a day when I don't have to buy another yellow bracelet.  Ever.

Stay well my friends and I'll see you on the road.