Category: family

06 Aug

What Did You Just Call Me?

The human mind can be a random thing–some a little more so than others.

For reasons that cannot be explained except possibly by a multi-year study involving teams of anthropologists and neurologists, I wondered today what my brother calls me. Specifically, I was curious what my older brother, Ben, says when he has to differentiate whether he is talking about me, or his other brother, Pat.

This thought occurred to me as I was driving home along Centreville Road in Chantilly, Va. None of these things has anything to do with my question, thus making it pretty random.

So I did what any good journalism school graduate would do; instead of wondering, I called a source and asked.

The issue is pretty simple, but for those who don’t know my family that well I’ll take a second and explain the dynamics. I am the middle child (sort of) with an older brother and a younger brother. Not to confuse things, there’s also a twin sister, but she is in the same boat as me. A photo, albeit a few years old, to help you visualize:

From left to right (facewise): Mal, Ben, Pat, Chris

If I say “My brother is going to the beach.” You might ask which one. I can either use his name (if I think you would know it) or say either “the younger one” or “the older one.”

But Ben can’t say that. He has a younger one and a younger-er one. His answer? He said he would use “the middle one” and “the younger one.” That seems like a pretty good solution. I guess technically he has a brother who is older than the other, giving him an “older brother” and a “younger brother.” But I guess in common usage that would get pretty confusing.

I haven’t asked Pat–my younger brother and Ben’s younger-er brother–what he says. But I’ll see him tomorrow and provide some sort of update.

As I was talking to Ben during my drive, I went past a group of townhouses with an empty parking lot. Empty, that is, except for one little girl having a blast driving her remote-controlled car.

There are several reasons this sight made me happy. It was a summer afternoon and a kid was outside playing. The kid was not handcuffed to a parent, but allowed to be playing independently, presumably within view of her home. There was a remote-controlled car involved.

I can only hope she had something as sweet as this ride:

By cjhannas family Uncategorized
28 Jul

Can We Go to the Shopping Center?

Four kids and a babysitter walk into a shopping center.

That’s not the start of a joke, but rather a scene that tells you it’s 2009 and not 1994.

I saw the group the other day while in a drive-thru line at Taco Bell. The shopping center is a few miles south of my parents’ house–which has another shopping center about a mile to the north.

The kids looked like they were all in elementary school, maybe one of them in middle school. The chaperon was clearly leading the way on their midday, summer-vacation sojourn.

I couldn’t help but to think back to my elementary school days. It was then that a shopping center sprang up out of a former strawberry farm, bringing exciting things like a McDonald’s so close to our house. It wasn’t long before me and my three siblings were planning Saturday trips for pawing through the Salvation Army store or scoring a meal at the long-defunct–but tasty–Tippy’s Tacos.

All we needed was permission to go. Today, there are probably few parents who would let their four kids walk or ride their bikes to a place so full of strangers; a trip that would have them gone for several hours. We didn’t even have cell phones to keep track of us.

And yet, our parents let us go. During summer vacation, we could go all the time. I’ll never forget learning the lesson of thinking about your mode of transportation before making a purchase I picked up when I acquired a giant red plastic bat from the Salvation Army. It’s the kind that usually comes with a big plastic ball and is designed for 5-year-olds just learning how to swing. But at only 25 cents, how I could I pass it up? So I made the entire bike ride back home balancing the big red bat over my handlebars, glad that I hadn’t followed my instinct to buy two of them.

There was the time I went on my rollerblades, only to have a pretty awful spill in the gravel just in front of our neighborhood. Not even halfway to the shopping center, I decided to go ahead with the trip to McDonald’s. Fortunately they had a nice bathroom where I could examine my injuries and pick the gravel out of my arm before scarfing down a Big Mac.

On the last day of school in 6th grade, a group of my friends from the neighborhood thought it would be fun to go hang out at Chuck E. Cheese. That’s the day we learned they don’t let unaccompanied minors hang out at Chuck E. Cheese. A lame policy if you ask me.

My little brother, Pat, and his friend, also Pat, had their bikes stolen at the shopping center once. But out of hundreds of combined trips, that’s the only negative thing that ever happened.

You might think this is a different time, and in a way it is. I think we are more aware of what is around us, but that doesn’t mean those same potentially dangerous elements weren’t in our society 15 years ago. What is here is a level of caution that doesn’t let kids be more than 10 feet from their parents. While that may be “safer,” there are certain lessons you can learn and experiences you can only have when your dad says you and your brother can go to the shopping center.

By cjhannas family McDonald's nostalgia Taco Bell Uncategorized
24 Feb

Creative Confusion

Have a room in your home in serious need of redecoration? Why not turn to the artwork of children to brighten those bare walls? Even better, dig up some of your own work if you still have it laying around.

My parent’s basement is plastered in the artwork my siblings and I brought home during our elementary school days, mainly because my mother kept every single piece of school-related paper. Several years ago, we all started going through our boxes and boxes of material to try to pare down the gargantuan load. In doing so, we ended up with a pile of our artwork, and were sitting in a rather undecorated space.

So this happened:

In my case, it was clear that my artistic skills ceased at about the second grade. If I drew a flower today it would look quite a bit like one done by my 8-year-old self. But there is one piece that I find particularly entertaining. It’s hanging on the wall just above my computer screen. According to what’s written on the back, it was done in the sixth grade. The assignment was some sort of poster contest, though I’m not sure the exact theme.

I went with “Save The World, Stop The Violence.” A worthy cause if I say so myself. I’ll point out the globe in the “O” of World. That’s probably my greatest artistic achievement. I remember tracing the gun from something, and my teacher not wanting to display my work because it had a gun. I can’t imagine what would have happened today. I probably would have been expelled for plotting to take down the school.

Then of course, there is the stop sign. If you didn’t look closely before, I’ll wait while you give it another glance…….Ok, what’s wrong with this picture? That’s right, my sixth-grade self made a stop sign with only six sides. It’s not like I didn’t pass by at least three of them while I rode my bike to school every day and should have known better. Maybe that’s why I didn’t win the contest.

One of the overall best works is courtesy of my sister. It makes me want to have a little card next to each piece explaining what the assignment was supposed to be. Check out this girl standing outside on a nice, sunny day:

She certainly looks very happy. But what makes this picture curious is the text. It has apparently been translated by a teacher to read “Abraham Lincoln got shot.” Um, what? Why is the girl so happy, and what does Lincoln have to do with this outside scene? Obviously the assignment was completed, since we can see the teacher’s red smiley face in the upper right corner. Was this a depiction of Jefferson Davis’ granddaughter? A previously unidentified Booth co-conspirator? This is why we need time machines.

The confusion brought to mind a casualty of my horrid handwriting from my Susquehanna days. My dorm room desk featured a pull-out keyboard tray that I used to store pens and an ongoing to-do list. My entire organization system depended on a single sheet of paper with a list of the item, a day I intended to complete it off to the left and the day it was due on the right. If I needed to scribble down a random piece of info, like a phone number or a message for my roommate, that made it onto an unused portion of the page.

But my final list has an entry I cannot decipher. I had no clue what it said just days after I wrote it, and definitely don’t have a better idea today. Here’s the full sheet:

Down in the bottom right corner is the boxed-in, questionable item:

Any ideas? I think it’s a name since both words appear to be capitalized. That is of course if we assume it is two words. That would lead me to say it’s Lauren B—. I hope I wasn’t supposed to call her or provide any sort of vital assistance, since I can’t recall ever knowing a Lauren B—.

Of course, it could just as easily be Carmen or Camera or Laven. If only I didn’t use the blue pen to write it, I’m sure this would have been no mystery. Despite my known poor handwriting, I still sometimes used a blue ballpoint pen that always added extra loops and confusion to my writing. Why didn’t I use the trusted set of black pens?!

Lauren, if you’re out there, I’m sorry.

By cjhannas family handwriting home nostalgia Uncategorized
06 Nov

Remembered in Print

I know you’ve been clamoring for updates on The Year of Books or Year of Reading or whatever it is I dubbed my quest to read 20 books this year. Well sometimes life gets in the way of your best intentions. That is not to say I gave up, but rather didn’t have a chance to chronicle the latest ones. Between seemingly simultaneous trips, ending an old job, looking for a new job, packing and moving, this space has been neglected, but I have been reading!

So here goes.

I’m still not sure what to make of the timing of this one. A lot of times I’ll get 75 percent through a book and put off the end for a few days. With “The Dead Beat” by Marilyn Johnson, those few days changed the tone with which I read.

In the simplest description, it’s a book about obituaries. Most people my age don’t pay much attention to the often last chronicles of peoples lives printed in their local paper. But if you have taken journalism classes you probably had to delve into the world of writing about the dead.

That process can be a fascinating way to learn incredible things about seemingly “normal” people. Or if your professor allows, you can decide the obit being written about you for class can include details of dying after being kicked in the chest by a kangaroo during a boxing match at Madison Square Garden. I’m sure I have always been a treat to have in class.

Johnson doesn’t have to make up the absurd to delve into the art of the obit. She goes through the American and British papers who truly have turned this type of story into something to be studied. She even spends time at a convention of obit writers and readers who come together each year to discuss the craft and the latest in the world of last writings. During her discussion of playwright Arthur Miller’s obit, I learned he was the father-in-law of actor Daniel Day-Lewis.

She does a great job of setting up the “debate” in the obit world, the decision of who gets that honored spot each day and how the story is written. Johnson breaks down the stylistic differences between those who stick to the easy details and those who pull no punches in lampooning characters who quite frankly deserve it.

But perhaps the most poignant part of the book comes as she talks to one of the pioneers in modern U.S. obits. His name is Jim Nicholson, and he wrote for the Philadelphia Daily News. At the time of their interactions Nicholson had retired and was caring for his wife who had Alzheimer’s. He talks about getting out of a formulaic approach to the process, especially when talking to the family about their lost loved one:

“Everyone who comes in the house or calls on the phone is trying their best to out-mourn everyone else. You get a steady diet of that for three or four days, and I call up and talk regular, just like I’m talking to you, it’s a breath of fresh air. I ask about his favorite breakfast food, what kind of disciplinarian was she, did she let you have that hamster or doge the first time you asked. I’d wind up asking the questions that people who live with you all your life never end up asking.”

Unfortunately you can’t really time when that subject is going to come up. Sometimes you have an idea that the end may be near, but even then the final seconds are always a surprise. I mentioned before the few days I took off before finishing this book. I went to North Carolina for a camping trip with my brothers and some of my brother’s friends. That Saturday we got a call that our grandfather had died.

And so it was a week of making arrangements to fly home, spend time with a family that seemingly “just” did this process three years ago with our grandmother. I don’t know if it was more comforting that we knew the routine–same funeral home, same cemetery, same pastor. But I do remember feeling like I was in a movie when we arrived at the burial to see a military honor guard and the ceremony that came with it–three-shot volley, presentation of the flag from the casket to my aunt, salutes as the procession arrived.

I left work and went straight to the airport to fly home. While waiting for my flight in Jacksonville I read “He left many things well begun,” a line Johnson quotes from an obit in her collection. I’m not sure I would have read that line the same way had I finished the book a few days before.

From the Loudoun Times-Mirror, Col. Chester W. McDowell, Jr.

By cjhannas books family Poppop Uncategorized
28 Jul

I Wanna be the First, the Best…

Sometimes we do things that are stupid, awesome, or stupidly awesome. You might think, “Man, I bet not a lot of people have ever one that.”

But what if nobody has? What if you’re the first person to ever do it?

We have lots of records or so-called “important” milestones—The first guy to reach the north pole (Santa of course), fly around the world, hit 50 home runs in a season, eat 60 hot dogs in 12 minutes.

But what about the stuff that doesn’t matter?

The other day I was playing pool in my basement with my brother Pat. It was during our rousing game of 15-ball that I assert Pat became the first person on the planet to skip a cue ball off a pool table, and have it land on a Playstation 3 controller.

Think about all of the pieces involved, and how unlikely it is that they come together. It’s not often that you hit the cue ball off the table. Sure, when you mess around all the time and attempt the number of jumps we do, it does happen more frequently, but in the greater world it just doesn’t happen.

Then take into consideration the placement of most billiards tables in the world. How many of them are even in the same dwelling, let alone the same room as a Playstation 3? Then you have to have the controller within striking distance, and in a position to be struck by the cue ball. Line up the angles just right, and bam, you’ve got history.

I’m still pondering whether to get him a trophy. Maybe just a gift certificate to the Selinsgrove Sub Shop.

A pictorial version of the feat (recreated):

Click here, yo.

By cjhannas family home Uncategorized video games
28 Jul

Where have All the Beach Balls Gone?

For about 15 years my grandparents lived out in the “country” in Virginia, about 40 minutes from my house. They had five acres with a huge weeping willow tree in the front yard and a field of a thousand pine trees in the back.

With an aunt and cousins in the area as well, it seemed we went there a few times a month to celebrate something—a birthday, holiday, or just let’s get together day. In the summer we’d stay there for a week, which was probably designed half as a mini-vacation for us and half as a respite for my mother.

The big draw to us was the pool. Sitting in the back yard nestled inside a ring of hedges, the water bore the brunt of our leisure time. There were rafts, noodles, masks, goggles, things to dive after, and a slew of balls including a few beach balls.

We made up umpteen games using some or all of those things, or in the case of my brothers and I, we just smacked the balls at each other until someone got sufficiently pissed to throw it over the hedges. That was usually followed by a “Gosh, why’d you do that, idiot.” And a swift, “Shut up.”

The great thing about the beach balls is that they float, if you get hit it stings for a second but no permanent damage, and if you’re being pummeled, you can use the previously mentioned method of stopping your beating.

But maybe those reasons, well two of them, are precisely why you don’t actually see beach balls at the beach. Think about it. I can’t remember ever seeing one.

They float easily. That means when the kids are playing too close to the water, as kids are wont to do, the thing gets swept into the sea. Now if you act quickly enough, that’s not too much of a problem. Dive in, swim a couple of strokes and get the ball back.

But if you’re a parent chilling on the beach, relaxing for one of the few times all year where you can sit in the sun and just read a damn book, are you diving in after a ball you got for $1.99? Not a chance. That sucka is gone.

Sure, the kids might whine about how they don’t have a ball anymore, but hey, that’s just life lesson time. Kids, if you want things, don’t let them go into the ocean.

The same thing goes for the ball’s lightness qualities. The breeze along the water is virtually ever-present. If that thing’s not tied down in some manner, or snugly inside the giant whole the kid dug, it’s going to be headed down the beach in a second.

Maybe you’ll run into a good Samaritan who’s paying attention and snags the ball, waiting for a worried kid to come running up the beach to retrieve his wares. But most likely, you’re sitting in that chair saying: “Hey dude, look at this kid running after that ball. He’s never going to catch it. Let’s see how long he runs after it!”

Come to think of it, I may know where all those beach balls went. Someone check Barry Bonds’ pecs.

And if you’ve never seen a turtle attack a cat, you’re welcome.

By cjhannas family Uncategorized
19 Nov

Mars Food and Pennies

On my way into New York on Thursday, my train stopped. The conductor got on the horn and explained that there was track work being done and we had to wait for another train to pass before we could proceed. It would just be a minute he said.

A few rows behind me, a very loud-talking fellow passenger apparently couldn’t hear the message over his own voice.

“I’m on the train. It’s stopped. I have no idea why. Yeah, it’s not even moving. I don’t know what’s up.”

Maybe he should have listened instead of subjecting the rest of us to his loud one-sided conversation. But then again, I did learn about his medical problems 12 seconds later.

“Yeah they said it’s an outpatient thing. No it’s not a stone, it’s a tear in my intestine.”

And with that my day was complete. Or so I thought.

Waiting in my future was the greatest dining experience of my life, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to eat on the planet Mars.

That’s right, Mars. Or more specifically, Mars in the year 2112. My cousin and I were deciding on where to eat, and she mentioned that such a place existed, and without question that is where we were heading.

A man in an aluminum-looking suit with crazy hair greets you and asks if you want to walk to Mars or take the spaceship. We took the spaceship, a 22-seat craft that got us to the planet in a mere matter of minutes.

The red planet is, well, very red. It’s rocky, has a penchant for techno music and some apparently friendly aliens who entertain children and adults alike. And the don’t have just chicken parmesan, they have cosmic chicken parmesan. It was very cosmic.

As their website says, “Why spend another ho-hum evening planet side, eating and seeing the same old stuff you have been eating and seeing for years?”

And now I can cross “Eat on Mars” off my life to-do list.

And just for the heck of it, 1968pennies.com, where they’ll put your name on the donors list if you send them a penny from 1968. They say tons of pennies were made that year, many to be lost or forgotten. That’s why they want to collect them, to save them for future generations to enjoy.

By cjhannas family food Uncategorized
24 Aug

No Lady, I Rode in on Pixie Dust

Since at least one person found this entertaining, I thought I’d share with the masses. Today I did something quite dumb and ended up in a situation in which I could do nothing but sit down and laugh at myself.

I went to my grandparents’ house to do a little work which involved going up to their second-floor porch. You get up to the porch by going out a door attached to one of the bedrooms. That is the only way in, and the only way out…unless you are like 12 feet tall. I did the spackling I went up there to do and proceeded to turn the knob on the door to get back into the house. The door was locked. The keys were on the kitchen counter. I am a freaking genius.

So of course while I was up there and didn’t know I was locked out, there were people everywhere walking by with their dogs, kids, etc. The second I find that I’m locked out…nobody. Not a soul for a good 20 minutes. So I pondered my options, which included popping out the screens and hoping a window was unlocked (none of them were), jumping to the ground below (I value my knees), or waiting until someone finally came along.

Fortunately, No. 3 eventually happened. I asked a woman if she could go around back and let me in. This woman either didn’t live in the neighborhood (which has pretty much identical houses), or didn’t realize there was exactly one way to get onto that porch. She said, “You want me to just walk through these people’s house?” I kindly informed her that it was my grandparents’ house without mentioning that I hadn’t exactly just materialized on this porch out of thin air or climbed up there on an invisible ladder…there was a key involved, I just don’t freaking have it, thanks. Fortunately my charm (or helplessness) was enough to get her into the house and for her to unlock the door.

By cjhannas family Nana not smart Poppop Uncategorized