Family

Mommy’s Meth Lab

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on June 7, 2012, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

My mom ran a meth lab out of her house for years without getting caught; she stockpiled enough simulants and inhalants to make Charlie Sheen weep. My kindergarten teacher (who shall remain nameless to protect her family) was even worse; she let her students handle so many drugs that it’s a miracle any of us managed to crawl out of there alive. However, after reading the news this week, I realize that my beloved Gammy was the worst of all: she used bath salts.

When I was growing up, glue sniffing was a phase that lasted about a day or two in elementary school art class. Trying to get high off a bottle of Elmer’s was like trying to suck a bowling ball through a straw: it could be done if you tried hard enough, but there wasn’t much of a payoff. Sure, you might hear a story about a model airplane enthusiast going off the rails every now and again, but who could blame them? When you gave kids glue, paint, contact cement, and small amounts of gas in a windowless room and expected them to spend hours fumbling over tiny details, it doesn’t take a Grateful Dead fan to figure out the first trip that plane is taking.

It was a time when parents had fewer “hidden dangers” in the house from which to protect their children—mostly things like paint chips, asbestos, or the accidental ingestion of cleaning products tucked away on the high shelves. Nowadays, more and more people are drawn to that very shelf in search of a cheap, readily-available high. Stealing a bit of dad’s liquor or stumbling upon an older brother’s “secret stash” has been replaced by something far more sinister: studying ingredient labels.

Stealing mommy’s Ambien is so 2011. These days, kids are finding novel ways to use household products in ways we never imagined. As a kid, I never looked at the felt-tip markers as a door to another world… I just used them draw doors. I never thought of spending my newspaper route money on paint solvent or correction fluid or contact cleaner. Unfortunately, these have now become common inhalants, both cheap and accessible.

By modern standards, my parents’ home warehoused a laundry list of mind-altering substances. The kitchen cabinets contained aerosol air fresheners, degreasers, whipped cream dispensers, peppermint extract, and nutmeg. The bathroom cabinets were full of hair spray, cough medicine, nail polish, ammonia, and toilet bowl cleaner. In today’s climate, my dad’s workshop stocks of spray paint, gasoline, and car wax would make him a suburban Pablo Escobar.

Regardless of where they fall internationally on science achievement tests, it seems our kids are developing a fatal interest in chemistry. Data from the 2011 “Monitoring the Future” study, an annual survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, shows that 13 percent of 8th graders reported abusing inhalants in the past year. Most of these inhalants come in the form of common substances found around any household. Even worse is that 41 percent of 8th graders don’t consider the regular use of inhalants to be harmful, and 65 percent don’t think trying inhalants once or twice is risky. These ingredients create a recipe for disaster.

Yesterday’s pre-school glue sniffing did not involve the potency of the chemicals kids are experimenting with today. This isn’t smoking banana peels after seeing a Velvet Underground album cover—today’s popular “experiments” are exponentially more toxic and could irrevocably damage the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, nerves, and brain.  Sniffing highly concentrated amounts of the chemicals in solvents or aerosol sprays can induce heart failure and death. If our kids don’t yet understand the severity of this problem, we need to better educate ourselves in order to educate them.

When something as innocuous as bath salts can cause a person to cannibalize another as happened in Miami last week, it’s time to re-think our approach to drug education. For instance, last fall the Drug Enforcement Administration banned three of the chemicals used in bath salts (38 states had already enacted their own such bans) yet none of these actions prevented this horrific act. California coughers can offer an interesting precedent as to the efficacy of this thinking. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration banned ephedra and limited ephedrine to cough and allergy remedies because it was being abused as a weight loss aid. In 2009, the FDA banned over-the-counter phenylpropanolamine in cough syrup. In January of 2012, in an attempt to stem its epidemic abuse as a hallucinogen, California banned the sale of cough syrup to minors altogether.  In short, it kept banning individual ingredients until it eventually banned the substance altogether—there simply too many ingredients left that could produce a high.

It seems as if focusing on the availability of the substance alone isn’t enough. When the drug of choice can be found in something as unoffending as a can of Lysol, we can’t legislate the problem away. More focus on educating adolescents as to the dangers of these trends might yield better results, not to mention exploring the reasons they wanted to escape like this in the first place. That doesn’t mean we should stop taking dangerous substances off the market, but rather that we should start figuring out why people turn to inhaling cleaning fluid to numb their pain.

After all, our society managed to get along just fine with gasoline and paint and even nutmeg for centuries before children turned them into hallucinogens. Maybe we adults are as much of the problem as the substances these kids are abusing.

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The Human Conditioning

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on May 17, 2012, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

The thief had been stealing money from us for weeks before we caught onto it. Just last night, I spied the hulking figure squatting inside my open window, waiting. I wanted to reach over to my sleeping wife, to protect her, to warn her—but the sweat-soaked sheets glued me to the bed. The guttural growls coming from the intruder failed to wake our dogs, leaving only me to see the robbery unfold.

I watched helplessly as the burglar greedily sipped at the air around us. I felt naked and exposed as the thought hit me: I had no defense against this cold-hearted criminal. Whatever power I’d had to protect my family was lost the moment that open window allowed this creature access… the moment my carelessness had provided the opportunity…

The moment I’d bought it on sale at Walmart.

Air conditioners, like cable TV, GPS, and the Ab Roller, are luxuries that somehow turn into necessities when our guards are down. Applying the old drug dealer’s adage that “The first hit is free,” most of us experiment a bit with our disposable income. After all, America’s economy is built upon indulgences like wedding china that will rarely, if ever, get used. These days, frugality can be seen as downright unpatriotic. If we’re not careful, however, this can bloom into full-scale addiction. Overnight, our cable package could include the Guam Channel and 24-hour coverage of Sudoku tournaments. Worse, it could lead to central air conditioning.

Like vampires or vacuum cleaner salesmen, air conditioners have to be invited in—an evil we bring upon ourselves. As anyone who’s seen the monthly electric bill can tell you, air conditioning is evil. Check the utility costs after a heat wave—I’ve had muggers who left me with more money. And yet it only takes a short time with air conditioning to make it irreplaceable. I find it impossible to switch back to the fan after a few nights delighting in the frosted windowpane cloud of cooled air. When the electricity goes out, my withdrawal symptoms would put Robert Downey, Jr. to shame.

The entire concept of air conditioning is designed to separate us from nature. We spend all winter cooped up and dreaming of warmer weather only to cower inside during July and August like snowmen afraid to melt. We install monstrous boxes in our windows that block out the sun, then close every other window and door to keep the cold air in—it’s as if we’ve moved inside the refrigerator. Also like the refrigerator, I always forget to change the filter—in this case, a large, netted screen so full of scum and filth that I shudder to breathe at all. The first weeks of use lead to endless sneezing, red eyes, and an insatiable desire for chest x-rays until I finally remember to wash the filter out.

My father, who grows smarter as I get older, didn’t believe in air conditioning. He didn’t believe in blinds, window shades or curtains, either, because his house was designed to get his kids out of bed quickly. If we were uncomfortable and the sun shining directly into our eyes each morning, we’d be more likely to get up and out of his hair. This really helped keep the electric bill down, and I’m beginning to think this might be a way to keep the utility companies from robbing me blind each month.

Oh, I’ll keep an air conditioner or two for emergencies, but they’ll only be invited in as guests, not tenants. That way, it’ll give me an excuse to break out the wedding china.

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Bouncing and Insomnia

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on May 3, 2012, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

One doesn’t often think of mattresses until lying sleepless in them for hours at a clip. In the well-lit showroom, all of them seem comfortable. That the “memory foam” will suffocate my wife and I in summer, or that the “dual zone” option will leave one of us sleeping in a crater, never enters our minds.

A night in a hotel changes that. We’re thrown into a no-win situation: if we love the bed, we end up hating our own.  When we get back, we’ll run down the laundry list of ways our bed doesn’t stack up, staying up all night adding foam layers or switching pillows. If we don’t like the hotel bed, we’ll be up all night playing with the AC or switching pillows. Only one thing is for certain: regardless of the mattress, we’ll hate those pillows.

Mattress comfort was not a priority in my father’s house. Like heat in the winter or “free time,” comfort took a back seat to utility. A navy man, he spent forty years sleeping on a bed sewn from two twins rather than paying for a king. (His queen did the sewing.) It must have been a nostalgic nod to his years on naval destroyers that led him to purchase the used trampoline bunk beds for his sons. To be fair, they didn’t start out as trampolines. Instead, they started out as threadbare webs of thin wire held together by hundreds of small springs. The only thing that kept them from tattooing their chicken wire design into our backs were the stained mattresses that appeared to have been taken too soon from their mother—they were as thick as a seventh grade mustache.

While completely unacceptable for actual sleep, they turned out to be fantastic trampolines. My parents hated trampolines almost as much as they hated buying king size mattresses. They refused to let us on them after a friend had been paralyzed in their youth. These army surplus bunk beds were perfect replacements, and I took to wearing an old football helmet to soften the blow as I hit the ceiling. Eventually, we stretched the wire netting until the beds became little more than wire hammocks inside the metal frame.

There was an element of danger that went far beyond the obvious risk of the rusted springs finally snapping. My family followed proper prison protocol: as the youngest boy, I was forced to sleep in the top bunk. At the slightest offense, my oldest brother would lie in the bunk below me as I lay sleeping. He would place both feet lightly on the springs of my bed, which sagged down toward him like an old water balloon. The mattress above squeezed through the wire springs like sausage casings, allowing for a solid footing. He would then kick his legs up into the mattress of my bunk, catapulting me a full five feet into the air. Sometimes I slammed into the ceiling, my face crushed against the white stucco and bearing its imprint for hours afterward. Other times I was flung past the bed altogether and landed in a heap on the floor, my Spiderman pajamas doing little to cushion the fall.

“What in the Sam Hill is going on up there?” my dad would roar upon feeling the thud.

“Nothing,” my brother would reply, glaring at me as if it were my fault that I couldn’t find a way to stick the landing. Random attacks such as these triggered insomnia, of course, but there was no “telling on” my bothers or sisters in my house. In my dad’s eyes, we were all guilty of complicity anyway.

And so, many years later, this is where the hotel pillow’s “memory foam” brings me. The so-called mattress upon which I was meant to sleep is a felt-covered slab of granite beneath me. My wife, who refuses to acknowledge its borders, has made the “dual zone” of the bed irrelevant. It’s three o’clock in the morning, and I’m typing this column because I know sleep will not find me here.

Instead, I need to remind myself to ask for a bouncier bed next time I check in. Insomnia is much more fun on a trampoline.

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The Beckoning Beach

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on March 22, 2012, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

As seagull calls echo across the empty beach, I revel in the fitful sunshine that warms my face in spite of stiff March winds. While the calendar turns slowly toward spring, the melodies of summer can be heard just underneath the breeze. If I try hard enough, the sounds of a youth spent at these shores bubbles to the fore: “Robert Francis Walsh, you get out of that water right now or so help me God…”

My mom never needed to finish those kinds of sentences, and she certainly never needed God’s help to carry out a punishment. However, it was always a chore to get her youngest boy out of Long Island Sound while the sun was still up. Growing up in a family with seven kids, the beach offered the space and privacy that a house crammed with nine people could not. People in large families realize that “privacy” is a relative thing, especially when the only room with a lock on it is the bathroom (and even that can be easily opened with a nail file).  Privacy was the ability to lose myself amid the laughing and screaming of hundreds of other kids at the beach.

While Long Island Sound was never known for its cleanliness when I was growing up, it was an oasis for me. Because the media made more of the occasional sewage overflow than was justified, swimming twenty yards out was truly a solitary experience. Most beach-goers only took quick dips and then raced up to the shack to shower off. Floating contentedly in the frigid, salty water by the buoys while the lifeguards tried to whistle me in, this was only place in the world where I felt truly alone. It was easy (and fun) to ignore the whistles of the frantic lifeguards from the shore when feeling a calm that I could never experience at home. As a result, I was rarely in a rush to leave.

Maximizing my beach time was a study in delicate escalation. Because of the size of our family, a trip to the beach involved planning one might expect when storming the beaches of Normandy. Gathering our things to go home was worse. My mom could spend an hour gathering her kids, collecting trash, packing up the cooler, balls, and floats while drying out her kids, shaking out the towels and shoes, and trudging back to the car… where the final shaking, drying, and packing into the car would begin.

In a family our size, however, it was easy to stay out of sight until the last moment. Inevitably, my mom would notice that I was missing, and the game would begin. Any child who struggles to stay in the water “just a little bit longer” ends up attempting it in four stages. In the interest of any of our younger readers who might need some pointers, I’ll outline them here. Stage One involves temporary deafness: face away from the shore and make a show of splashing around a lot—this will lend credence to your story when you later claim that you didn’t hear your mom screaming like a banshee at you from fifteen yards away. If she’s tired, she’ll give up and send someone else out to get you. Congratulations: you just bought yourself another five to ten minutes. If not, you’ll arrive at Stage Two.

At this stage, you realize she’s not going away. It’s best to turn and feign surprise, as if to say, “Oh, were you talking to me?”  Acknowledge that you understand her and that you’re coming in. This must be done swiftly, as she will stay and wait for you if she gets too upset. As soon as she turns her back, slowly bounce and float your way toward shore. This is often good for at least another ten minutes. Moving to the side instead of toward shore will ensure that you are at least in a different spot each time your mom sees you… the illusion of progress is often enough to appease the over-burdened mother. If not, you must act quickly!

Stage Three is the moment of truth; if played improperly, you will have a very long car ride home. If your mom realizes that you are simply ten yards down the shoreline instead of shaking the sand from your swimsuit, you have to play your trump card. “I lost my ear plug!” you yell, looking worriedly at the water around you. It’s not what you lose: it could be a ring, a Frisbee, a Spiderman action figure… just make sure you don’t go out there empty-handed.

Stage Four, like DEFCON 2, is an escalation that should never occur. Stage Four is when you simply reply, “No.” Your choices are very limited here, unless your parents are naïve enough to bribe you back to shore. If this is the case, you probably don’t even have to bother with the first three stages. If not, you either start swimming toward Long Island in the hope of starting a new life, or you swim back to the beach to await your sentence. If you were in my family, you had a better shot at survival if you tried for Port Jefferson.

Even as the chill air brings me back to the present, I feel the pull of this wonderful body of water. No matter how old I get, I appreciate the beauty of the Sound as warm weather approaches. My hearing has gotten worse as I’ve gotten older, but even I can hear the pleas from my wife as she stands on shore and tries to get me to swim in. “Robert Francis Walsh, you get out of that water right now or so help me God…”

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The Toilet Roll War

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on February 23, 2012, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

I noticed it as soon as I walked in the room, balanced precariously on the edge of the valance.

Amateur, I thought, taking it down and tossing it into the garbage. Why not just string Christmas lights around it next time?

Married couples develop odd little games after a while, and Kristen and I are no different. These games are never stated as such, and very rarely acknowledged. It might be a game of, “Who’s Letting the Dogs Out Before Bedtime?” or “Who Will Empty the Dishwasher?” My favorites are, “Who Will Break Down and Find That Smell?” and “Who is Gonna Answer The Damn Phone!

Nothing, however, trumps the Toilet Roll War. Ours started innocently enough, as these games usually do. My wife crawled into bed and bonked me on the head with an empty toilet paper roll.

“You didn’t replace the roll again,” she said, settling into her pillow.

“Yes, I did.” I replied, putting my book down. “I just put a new one in there this afternoon.”

“No, you just threw a new roll on top of the toilet.”

“Like I said,” I replied. “New roll.”

Some consider the source of marital friction to be an indication of that marriage’s overall health. My wife and I are lucky in that we never argue over the important things like love, respect, or the general direction of our lives. Instead, we can major in minor things like how to properly replace bathroom tissue. Every couple has its own bathroom battles, of course—some argue about whether or not to roll up the toothpaste from the bottom, others over the failure to wipe the mirror after brushing one’s teeth. For my wife, an empty toilet paper roll is like a raised middle finger.

As a man, if toilet paper is within my reach, it’s where it’s supposed to be. Even the inventor of modern toilet paper, Joseph Gayetty, thought so little of it that he had no problem watermarking his name onto each sheet. It makes no difference to me whether the paper is on the roller or resting comfortably on the shelf of the toilet. In fact, the very idea that toilet paper would require a holder at all seems ludicrous. I would not have included the unfurling of tissue paper on my list of required assistive technology, yet no bathroom in America is complete without a toilet paper roller. Instead, I would argue that it’s done more harm than good. As anyone who’s ever been in a rush can attest, a hastily pulled handful of toilet paper can spin the rest of the roll into a heap on the floor. Our efforts to re-roll the paper onto the holder look like a child’s attempt at mummification, and the paper rips at every subsequent turn of the roll. This is progress

Any visit to a public restroom reveals the ludicrous extremes to which this can be taken. Large metal contraptions encase the toilet paper and turn this delicate moment into an exercise in fly-fishing as we carefully pull just hard enough to hook the paper without ripping it in the process. I’ve seen Rube Goldberg machines that were less complicated. There’s even a protocol for how the paper should be unrolled, as a recent Cottonelle poll showed that 72% of respondents prefer the paper to pulled over the roll as opposed to under. My mom takes it a step further, pointing out that the paper must be folded to a point on top of the roll for guests. However, if my guests need an arrowpoint to show them the direction to pull the toilet paper, I doubt I can trust them to flush the toilet afterward.

To highlight my cavalier attitude toward the proper disposal of empty toilet paper rolls, my wife took to placing them on top of my toothbrush. I would then place the roll on her bedside table until it magically appeared under my pillow later that night. So began an escalating series of attempts to hide the rolls in odd places: in briefcases, jewelry boxes, cereal boxes or freezers. The game-within-a-game became a contest to see which of us could use up just enough toilet paper without taking that very last sheet, as the person using that last sheet has to replace and dispose of it properly

Lest you think my refusal to dispose of used rolls is inconsiderate, know that I’ve maintained the moral high ground here because my wife has trumped my lack of bathroom etiquette: she leaves the toilet seat up. Oh, she won’t admit it—in fact, she claims I am the one who always forgets to put the seat down. She clings to the idea that the toilet seat should always be put down, but not the lid. I try to explain that the toilet seat and lid are actually two parts of the same mechanism: both parts should be down when leaving the bathroom, and both of us should have to lift something before every use. What she’s really asking me to do is to optimize her toilet experience, to keep it in the “ready” position for women at all times. How dare she, how dare all women, demand such special treatment!

And so I poured my energy into more and more extravagant ways to hide the empty rolls. I strung several from our bedroom ceiling, even taped some together into a makeshift sailboat. Still, it’s getting harder to keep topping ourselves, to search for clever and increasingly flamboyant ways to get out points across. If I was single, I’d probably just leave it at, “Let’s make sure we replace these rolls when they’re done.”

But I’m not; I’m married, and I’m currently attempting to construct a mini Eiffel Tower out of the empty rolls I’ve been collecting for months…

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Jesus vs. Santa (A Young Catholic’s Struggle)

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star and Fairfield Sun newspapers on December 15, 2011, in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

As the Salvation Army Santa rang his bell for donations in front of the Stop ‘n’ Shop last week, I couldn’t help but think that this really improves his image. Like many kids, I had thought of Santa as my “go-to guy” for years, writing more letters to him than to all my relatives combined. Unfortunately, he’s only human. Or mostly human. Either way, he can only be trusted up to a point.

My Sunday School teachers always tried to put the holiday season in perspective: “Christmas is more about the birth of Jesus than the appearance of Santa Claus,” they’d say. That was always a tough sell. The end of the calendar year was like a holiday clearinghouse: Halloween, All Saints Day, Thanksgiving, the Immaculate Conception, Christmas, and the Feast of the Solemnity of Mary (New Year’s Day) all fell within two months of each other. In this crucible of holiday craziness, young Catholics like me were told we should turn to Jesus, not Santa Claus, for all we needed. However, material concerns often outweigh their spiritual counterparts when you’re eight and you’d trade your immortal soul for a new GI Joe with the Kung-Fu grip.

It was a delicate dance. How could we manage to keep both of them happy so as to maximize our Christmas haul while still keeping a door open for future salvation? After all, this wasn’t Jesus vs. the Easter Bunny. All the Easter Bunny did was hop around and hide eggs—he didn’t even have an opposable thumb. Santa, on the other hand, was famous for making a list and checking it twice. Whereas Jesus did not appear to retain a written record of my past transgressions, Santa seemed to hold a grudge.

Santa also provided children with a clear list of what not to do, and everyone knows it’s easier to be told what not to do than to be told what you should do. Don’t pout… check. Don’t cry… check. Jesus, on the other hand, was fond of saying things like, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” I mean, how do you know when you’re doing that right? It was easier to follow the things like the Ten Commandments, which seemed to have been written by Santa. He also made it clear that there would be immediate consequences if we didn’t do what he told us to do. He saw me when I was sleeping, and he saw me when I was awake. If I screwed up, he’d keep my presents and put a lump of coal in my stocking. Coal. I might as well have woken up to the bloody, severed head of a horse in the bed next to me. Santa dealt in black and white. With Jesus, I figured I’d always get a second chance.

Santa had immediacy: we could sit on his lap in the shopping mall and put the screws to him about that new bicycle we wanted. One time when I was eight years old, I jumped on his lap and begged for a new Lionel engine train.  Santa leaned into my ear where my mom couldn’t see and whispered, “You’ll have your train.” I was elated. I had backed a winner! I was still very fond of Jesus, but he had never looked me in the eye and promised to deliver like Santa. Jesus was fond of cryptic messages and fuzzy promises of rewards later on, but Santa was as subtle as an oncoming bullet. “You’ll have your train.”

On Christmas Eve, I went to midnight Mass with my family and tried to smooth things over with Jesus. I wished Him a happy birthday and hoped He understood. The next morning I ran downstairs to clear a spot in the basement for the train tracks. Santa was known to have somewhat questionable taste at times, and my impatience grew with every unwrapped pair of socks or knitted sweater. It wasn’t until the last present was opened that I began to doubt Santa. Surely he was on his way back, I thought, secretly putting out the fire in the fireplace so he wouldn’t hurt himself. The train set must have gotten stuck in his bag.

And that’s the rub with Santa. I learned that sometimes he couldn’t help himself, making promises he couldn’t keep. After all, if he’d had any restraint, he probably wouldn’t be so morbidly obese. We forget that he moved off the grid, setting up shop in the middle of nowhere like the Unabomber or Abe Vigoda. How could I expect him to remember the important things like my train set when he didn’t even have the foresight to install fog lights on his sleigh?

So ended my crisis of faith. It was fine to believe in Santa up to a point—as my mom would say, he was only doing the best he could. However, much like the Easter Bunny, I couldn’t put all my eggs in that basket.

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The Electricity Derby

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on November 3, 2011, and in the Fairfield Sun on November 10, 2011, both in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

It was odd enough having the first week of school cancelled because of Hurricane Irene, but dealing with power outages on a snowy Halloween? Not even the Great Pumpkin saw this one coming.

Since my childhood days, I’ve long been a fan of the Electricity Derby. In the days before laptops or Gameboys, I’d sit vigil during electrical outages while trying to guess which part of our neighborhood would get power restored first. Occasionally, a random house would suddenly sparkle to life, the glow of its lights illuminating our defeat. These were the cheaters, of course, the ones smart enough not only to buy generators but also keep them filled with gas. I hated them for their forward thinking and their refrigerators filled with unspoiled food. My mom would unearth the decades-old box of Carnation powdered milk that blighted the pantry shelf and inflict it upon us if the outage lasted more than a day or two.

Power outages were dangerous for the youngest boy in a family of seven kids. Electricity formed a kind of invisible fence that separated my brothers and sisters from me. The distraction of the radio, the televisions, and the video games protected me from their gaze. When the electricity went out, it was as if all the cages inside the zoo were opened at once. A boy could find himself pinned to the ground while his brother performed the dreaded “Loogie Drip” over his face, or get cornered by a mother who’d just noticed several more chores that needed doing.

This is probably when I first noticed how one’s senses are heightened when the power goes out. Without the white glare of the streetlights, suddenly the sky is filled with stars. You smell the trees and the leaves and the ground at your feet. You rediscover the sounds of nature around you in a way that’s never possible when you simply choose to turn all the lights off. You truly hear what your house sounds like: you notice every squeaky stair, every loose shutter. You begin to hear the conversations that your neighbors are having just behind the hum of the cicadas.

My neighbor, upon informing me that the power company had told him it would take a couple of days to restore power this week, calls this a “return to nature – a chance to live like our forefathers did, before electricity.” Sometimes, I hate my neighbor. After all, there’s no comparison here; our forefathers never knew any better. They lived every day with salted beef and reading by candlelight, so they never knew what they were missing. Take away their saltpeter for a day and they’d squeal like stuck schoolgirls!

We, on the other hand, are dependent on electricity; those who aren’t, like Unabomber Ted Kaczynsky, tend to go off the rails. I need to see “SportsCenter” before I go to bed or else I get owly. Losing electricity forces me to become hyper-conscious of things like the battery life of my iPod, cell phone, and laptop computer. My wife and I scramble to find our car charging cords, wondering how long we can hook them up before the car battery dies. We suddenly learn how much hot water is stored in the hot water tank in the basement, or how long the ice stays frozen in the freezer. Will the house alarm still work, or even the house phone? For the first time, we realize how many things rely on D batteries—every flashlight and emergency radio in the house seems to need one, and I haven’t bought one since 1994. Instead, I have scores of the AAA batteries that power the TV, VCR, DVD, cable box and dog alarm remotes that now sit useless… next to the useless flashlights. We are forced to use candles, which my wife buys without any thought of the practical reality of flame; she has only trinket-sized patchouli and clover candles that give off less light than my wristwatch. We begin to navigate the rooms more by smell than by light; the acrid rose candle in the bathroom, the vanilla in the bedroom, the maple (maple? maple candles?) in the kitchen. And who has matches these days? We stopped smoking years ago; the Smiths across the street smoke like chimneys so their house is lit up like a joint in a dorm room. We usually spend half the night looking under the couch cushions for that book of matches we remember from three years ago.

Still, after a few days we begin to get confident that we’ll never need electricity again. We get used to the ethereal silences and grow to appreciate the lack of electrified distraction that we often allow to dominate our lives. We keep the lights out at night, reveling in our newfound power over power. Maybe our forefathers had it right all along?

Then, just as I go upstairs to drift off to sleep amid the sounds of the crickets, I step in a steaming pile of dog crap. That’s when I remember that our forefathers lived like filthy animals, and I fall asleep to “SportsCenter.”

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Running A Fever

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on October 20, 2011, and in the Fairfield Sun on October 27, 2011, both in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

Jogging is right up there with chainsaw juggling on my list of favorite hobbies. Unlike chainsaw juggling, however, I keep trying to talk myself into liking the jog.

Like most things in my life that I consider failures, I like to blame it on my upbringing. (Keep this in mind for the future, kids: Works every time). Growing up as one of seven children in the “sticks” of Greenfield Hill in Fairfield, my mom logged thousands of miles shuttling us to our various swim and soccer practices. By the time we reached fifth grade, we all understood that if it wasn’t raining, we were on our own to get where we had to go. Our coaches must have wondered why the Walsh boys always arrived to soccer practice in a lather, never realizing we’d just biked six miles to get there. When our bikes were broken, we had only our feet upon which to rely.

As a result, my two older brothers decided to become triathletes, and I decided to become bitter. Instead of using this situation to its best advantage (using this travel as training sessions for their future races), I took it as an opportunity to whine every time I walked to work at the beach.

My brother Chris began pinning articles about Mike Pigg, a famous triathlete, all over our shared bedroom bulletin board. I retaliated by creating Mike’s fictional younger brother, Tim, and tacking up my own “articles” and “inspirational” quotes. Where Chris posted Mike’s quotes such as, “Whether you’re first or second, you have your pride,” I posted Tim’s: “Running hurts my toes and takes away from Twinkie time.”

I cultivated my snarky attitude toward fitness even as I desperately tried to “catch the fever.” Figuring prominently on the family bookshelf was a copy of Jim Fixx’s “The Complete Book of Running,” the seminal text of the running craze of the early 1980s. I leafed through it many times hoping to discover the zeal of the recently converted, only to put it down and grab another cookie. Not even his death of a heart attack (at the end of his daily jog, no less) could free me from the nagging notion that I should be out there running if I was serious about staying in shape.

What followed was about 20 years of sporadic “training,” three or four-week bursts in which I’d attempt to convince myself that running could chase away those unwanted pounds. Many of these bursts ended right after a series of kind souls pulled their cars over to the side of the road as I was running — to ask if I needed help, or maybe an oxygen mask.

It’s not as if recent news is helping my self-esteem as I try my hand at running again. Last week, even as I pounded away on my treadmill in a desperate attempt to complete a 2-mile jog, Amber Miller finished the 26.2-mile Chicago Marathon while 39 weeks pregnant. She gave birth a few hours later to a healthy baby girl, saying, “For me, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.”

On Saturday, Mark Ott finished the Hartford Marathon and did a handstand: He’d just finished his 51st race, one in every state and Washington, D.C.

As if this weren’t obnoxious enough, on Sunday 100-year-old runner Fauja Singh earned a spot in the Guinness World Records as the oldest person to complete a full-distance marathon when he finished the Toronto Waterfront Marathon. In my early 40s, I lose my breath when looking for the TV remote.

One thing keeps me from giving up, though, and that’s my brother Chris. He went from reading Mike Pigg’s inspirational quotes to becoming an inspiration himself as he fought off the ravages of colorectal cancer. Rather than rail at the injustice of getting this disease despite a lifetime of clean living and elite athletic training, he responded by preparing for his next marathon even as the radiation and chemotherapy robbed him of energy. Even when surgery threatened to permanently end his pursuit of Iron Man triathlete status, he found himself running in a series of events to support other cancer survivors. Today, he is not only a cancer survivor himself, but also one of the world’s foremost cancer care consultants (cancertreatmentsurvival.org) and, yes, an avid triathlete. Let’s see Mike Pigg top that one!

So I keep buying blister pads and trotting onto the treadmill in the hope I might someday be able to run four miles without stopping. While I’ll have to trade my Thanksgiving Day goal from the Pequot Runners 5-mile Road Race (pequotrunners.org) for the more attainable Stratford 5K Turkey Day Trot (hitekracing.com/turkeytrot), I keep training in the hope that someday running will grow on me. At one point I hoped to be able to match my brothers and finish one full marathon. At this point, I’ll be happy if I make it to the Thanksgiving table without a side trip to the emergency room.

I’ll keep training, though. Fauja Singh ran his first marathon at age 89, so I figure I have a few years to get this whole running thing down. Even Tim Pigg would have to admit that’s within reach.

Continue ReadingRunning A Fever

Parenting (is) A Bitch

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on October 6, 2011, and in the Fairfield Sun on October 13, 2011, both in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

I’m a sexist, no doubt about it. At least, I’m a sexist when it comes to my dogs: the Walsh clan has a strict “no Y chromosome” policy. Like a holiday sale at Anthropologie, we’re girls only. It’s not that male dogs are bad; in fact, two of my favorite dogs growing up were dudes. It’s just that getting older has caused me to get picky, and one of the gifts of old age is the propensity to perpetuate unsubstantiated stereotypes without apology. You know, like Glenn Beck.

For instance, when it comes to doing “number one,” I prefer the dainty female squat over the lifted leg of the male. Our girls empty their bladders all at once, an important consideration for those freezing January mornings when you’re dressed in nothing but your faded flannels and moth-eaten Led Zeppelin sweatshirt. The male dogs I’ve had in the past tended to dole it out a little at a time, making sporadic deposits as if handing out tips at the country club. Females are said to be able to “hold on” longer than males, which was a nice surprise for me: car trips with my wife turns into an impromptu tours of the local rest stops if we’re on the road longer than 20 minutes.

Female dogs are also supposed to be easier to train, and frankly, I need all the help I can get. Long ago, I accepted that the women in my life are all smarter than I; we’re not recruiting any more players from the losing team. Females are less distractible, a truly male trait if ever there was one. Speaking of distraction, it’s cheaper to spay a female than neuter a male. They also seem less angry afterward. This is important because the males have a stronger instinctual urge to roam, a la Tiger Woods, and I don’t need any teen moms in this house.

Like any protective father, I’m not a fan of potential suitors for my girls; no dog will ever be good enough for my pups. No matter how great he might be, nature has endowed him with an extraneous appendage that clouds the thinking of all of us so afflicted. The unexpected visit of the “red rocket” can turn a merry family gathering into an awkward lesson on anatomy (I guess that’s true for humans, too). I prefer to saddle the poor middle school health teachers with the birds and the bees, thank you.

Still, dogs crave the company of others, and I can’t protect them forever. We continue to seek out doggie playtime even though every trip to the dog park at Lake Mohegan finds me politely asking someone, “Could you please get your dog to stop humping my spaniel?” After all, my girls can’t help it if they’re hot. We seek out the company of responsible dog owners at places like the 6th Annual Fall Festival to Benefit Animals at Paradise Green in Stratford. Held this year on Saturday, October 8th, from 10am-5pm, it’s an amazing combination of dog walk, craft fair, and puppy playdate (additional information available on starsfest.com). After that, we’ll continue to hope for a permanent dog park in Stratford (check out “Residents for a Stratford CT dog park” on Facebook for information and petition).

In the meantime, I’ll smile at the males—I’ll pet them, praise them, throw the odd tennis ball or two—but I’ll keep a wary eye on them. After all, it’s a bitch to have female dogs.

Continue ReadingParenting (is) A Bitch

Dynamite In The Wrong Hands

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on August 25, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

“It’s not fair!” whined the little boy as he tore from his mother’s grip. “Everybody else has an iPad or a Nook; why do I have to use a stupid Kindle? It’s not even in color!” He jammed an e-reader back onto the shelf, knocking the “Back to School” sign off in the process, before his mother managed to wrangle him out of the electronics department. She kept apologizing to him, asking him to realize how much it cost, even as she dragged him out of the store. A few of the other customers exchanged condescending glances, but I understood the moment all too well: it was Dynamite magazine all over again.

When I was that kid’s age, I was going into 6th grade at Timothy Dwight School. Among the many rites of September was the magical hour when the teacher would spread the Scholastic Arrow Book Club sheets on the tables before us, inviting us into the world of reading through a series of tiny checkboxes we’d fill out in pencil. We could order any book or magazine we’d like, provided we came in later that week with the cash or check from home. The teacher would give a short summary of each magazine and show us a few sample issues. Alas, like Wyle E. Coyote, I only had eyes for Dynamite.

Dynamite was a glossy magazine for children that fed us popular culture in elementary school bits: think People magazine on training wheels. It featured the biggest stars of the day on its covers without the girlish stigma of Tiger Beat or the amateurish camp of Bananas. Before the days of cable TV and the internet, magazines had cache. In short: if you were cool, you got your copy of Dynamite each month in the big brown box the teacher lugged from the staff room. If you weren’t cool, you waited to be handed your free copy of Junior Scholastic.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Junior Scholastic, mind you, just as there’s nothing wrong with a free VD shot or buying ramen noodles in bulk. It contained the news of the day in digest form, followed by a series of reading comprehension questions and quick quizzes or word searches. It was supposed to make current events fun, a form of Flintstones chewable vitamins meant to cover up the aftertaste of Walter Cronkite. The good folks at Scholastic carefully chewed up the news before regurgitating their monthly cocktail into our eager 6th grade hands, their cover stories bearing headlines like, “Understanding The Hostage Crisis” or “The SALT Treaty and You.” If Dynamite magazine was dinner and drinks with Alec Baldwin, Junior Scholastic was jumping bail with Daniel Baldwin.

In addition to Magic Wanda’s page of tricks, the Good Vibrations advice column, Count Morbida’s puzzles, the Bummers page (adolescent bits of satire that always began with, “Don’t you hate it when…”), or the occasional pull-out poster, Dynamite’s crack staff of journalists touched upon the truly important topics of our time. One need only review these actual headlines from my sixth grade year in 1979/1980 to appreciate the coverage. September: “Face to Face With Erik Estrada.” October: “Gary Coleman, TV’s Little Big Man.” November: “The Dukes of Hazzard.” December: “Steve Martin, A Wild and Crazy Guy!” January: “Mork and His New Pals!” February: “Buck Rogers, Then and Now!” March: “Live From New York: It’s Gilda Radner!” April: “BJ and The Bear, A Special Talk with Greg Evigan!” May: “Benji, Hollywood’s Top Dog!” June: “Meet John Schneider!”  After December, all the headlines ended in exclamation points (!) and sent a clear signal to every child that something truly wild and crazy was going on between those covers.

My mom was immune to Dynamite’s charms, however, and no amount of pleading would convince her to part with the requisite subscription money. Much like the cold-hearted witch who’d refused her growing boy’s desperate petition for a decent e-reader (the one he has isn’t even color, for goodness sake), my mother was content to see me locked in a cell of cultural ignorance that haunts me to this day. The headlines I saw when I peeked over to my classmates’ desks offered a glimpse into a world I’d never know. “The Bee Gees vs. The Beatles! Who’s The Greatest?” (I was never told.) “Dynamite Spends A Happy Day With Scott Baio!” (I was never invited.) “Meet Rick Springfield!” (To this day, I have yet to do so.)

Lady, if you’re reading this, spring for the kid’s Nook. Don’t rob him of the intimate, backstage knowledge of the Jonas Brothers latest tour lest he grow up and regret his ignorance for the rest of his life. There are some holes you just don’t fill. Worse yet, he might become even more obnoxious and someday write a column about it.

On a side note, I’d like to apologize to my mom for most every back-to-school shopping trip we ever took.

Continue ReadingDynamite In The Wrong Hands