12/9/82

12/9/82. It's one of those numbers that's burned into my head. 6/28/75, 6/30/79, 1/10/1954, 1/20/09 are other dates in my life that I've memorized, after years of completing forms and applications, and celebrating annually family milestones. Also included are Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers and now email addresses.

But I digress. I think of this because the one of whom I wish to speak has a prodigious memory, a small gift in a pantheon of personal gifts which she can rightly claim.

Her memory is so good, her friends used to call her "Rain Man," after the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie of the same name.

She's extraordinarily good at spelling, like me. She's won contests. To this day, Ev Larabell insists that the tester at the oral bee mispronounced  the word "fanaticism" as "phonaticism," causing Kelly to misspell the word. Otherwise, Kelly might have moved on to the next level in the spelling contest. As it was, she was the best speller that year at Savage Elementary School.

She was the co-winner of the John May award for St. Anthony CYO basketball in eighth grade. That same year, she was voted MVP of South Middle School's basketball team.

Among the LaVaute nuclear family, she is by far the most photogenic. Her smile can literally light up a room.

She loves to laugh. She and her brother Matthew can quote long passages from the movie "Bad Boys" with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, and recently she's made me laugh, a lot, with FB posts from the "Vacation" movies with Chevy Chase.

She was voted best female dancer at Belleville High School in her senior year, a school where she played basketball, soccer and track, and was in the band.

She can write. Oh, she can write. Imagination, just the right touch, a sense of caring and creativity. I miss seeing it more often, it's so good.

The thing of which I'm the most fond, however, is something she shares with her brother. She's a good friend; no, a great friend. I have admired that in my children for many years. In that, they're like their mother. Thank goodness.

Happy birthday, Kel, to a fabulous daughter of whom I'm ferociously proud, who continues to amaze and delight me most every day. Happy, happy birthday.

I spent some quality time last night with Noah. I've noticed the first thing he does when I arrive at his home, after I see him get visibly excited through the window as I walk toward him from the car, is he wants to show me something new that he has, something with which we can play.

Last night, it was a rubberized toy sword. Evidently, his parents had already taught him not to stab someone even in play, because I saw a lot swinging, but no poking - of Pa, or anyone else.

His parents always seem to be a few steps ahead of him regarding behavior that could even remotely be interpreted as bad. Their investment is paying dividends even now, but in the future - that kid will be a net add to society, not a minus. And isn't that our job as parents?

We moved quickly to the bedroom, where he opened his closet to get out more toys. Dismissively, he admitted that the closets weren't school buses, as we had pretended last week, but were simply bedroom closets. Such a memory.

I told him I disagreed - they could be anything we wanted them to be. We moved from the bedroom to the basement, where a corner of the large room is his. We played inside the cardboard house that once contained a new freezer, a briefly with his kitchen.

We moved to the furniture and began watching the movie "Jungle Book 2" on television. I was passingly familiar with Mowgli and his story,  but it was great to share it with Noah. He asked about 1,000 questions. We talked about the animals and the people, and I was hoping he wouldn't be too frightened of the tiger. He did fine.

Reunion

Trick-or-treating on All Hallow's Eve 2012 with the family. Noah's at far right, directly above the center of the spider.


When we pulled in, I saw Gretta's face in the window. I smiled - I knew what was about to happen, and it would be fun.

But I had traveled north for a different reason. I got out, grabbed the stuff from the backseat, and turned to begin the short walk to the front door.

PA! I heard. I stopped, raised my head, straightened myself, and there he was. He had opened the front door halfway, and was leaning out toward the porch, a big smile on his face.

In my clearest, loudest and most joyous voice, I replied NOAH!, and my soul lifted skyward. His absence the last two weeks was over. I had re-entered his world, our world, Noah's world - Pa's and Noah's world. Emotionally, it's like stepping into a promised land where there is no suffering, no worry; naught but fun and very often silliness.

And learning. He repeats everything you say, as if practicing to become better at it.

I got to watch him go trick-or-treating, and it was a pleasure and a privilege. He was engaged, he was having fun. He acted as if it was his first time; he'd evidently forgotten about last year.

He was costumed as a fire chief, and boy did he look good, except possibly when he put his helmet on backwards.

God, I missed him. Last night was a tonic. And I got to see Owen, too. What a pair they're going to make.

My shadow, my friend

When I awake in the morning, he's usually at the foot of the bed. But not for long. He comes up toward me, each of us half-awake, gradually becoming alert to the possibilities of a new day, and he asks for attention.

I'll pet him on top of his head, and his back, while he lays comfortably on a pillow. When I get up, I sometimes pick him up and put him on the floor. His body is aging and is a little more brittle, as is mine. In many ways these days, we are a pair.

Before I retired 44 months ago, we were good friends, but I was gone to work each day, as was Jan, and so we kenneled him in the basement while we were at work. When we arrived home, he and Maisie were thrilled to see us.

Most days after we got home from work, we let the dogs out, we fed them, we settled in for the evening before retiring. Waking hours away from work on weekdays seemed much too short.

But I have spent much time with him in the recent past. When I'm home, he's right next to me. If I'm seated, he's in my lap, except for when he gets too hot with the body contact, or when I respond to, say, a play in a college football game.

Jan will suggest my reaction is like an explosion in the family room, and it can be positive or negative. Whatever. It frightens Moses, who leaves my lap and goes to Jan's lap. He looks at me with curiosity and maybe a little fear.

He protects me, whether I need it or not - I think he would give his life for me - he is brave, he loves to hunt. If he smells a critter below the deck, he will scratch at the wood in futility, hoping to reach what is beneath it.

Toy critters that make noise or squeak turn him into a madman. I have a couple small plastic balls in the garage that, when moved, utter weird garbled sounds like an evil gremlin. They're in the garage for a reason. The last time one was in the house, he had it between his paws and treated it so violently that he tore a hole in the fabric of Maisie's dog bed where he lay, furiously digging and biting at his victim.

His most recent obsession is a rubber rat we bought for the house for Halloween. It's life-size and it's black. I put it on the family room floor the other night, so see what he would do, especially whether he might be afraid of it. He sniffed it a bit, but didn't attack it. He wasn't real impressed.

A  tad disappointed, I picked up the rat, and went to return it to its place on the bathroom sink. On the chance that it might squeak, I squeezed it. That did it. He ran across the room and begged for me to give it to him. I didn't because I knew he would destroy it. Instead, I put it back on the sink of the bathroom where it had sat, and I returned to the family room.

Jan has said that dogs like toys that squeak because they're reminded of another animal in distress, an easy victim. I have found that to be very true and insightful, and I see it in full flower with Moses.

After I left, Moses stayed in the bathroom with the rat, got on his hind legs and scratched the wood surface of the cabinet on which the rat lay, and cried for me to give it to him. It got so annoying, I ushered him out of the bathroom and closed the door. That helped a bit.

I love his passion, albeit sometimes obsessive, I love the sense of fun, I love the friendship we've developed. Moses has many personality flaws - he has bitten house guests, for example, and he's the second-highest high-maintenance creature in the house - but on balance, I love him, I admire him in many ways. Good boy, Moses.

Braying a bit

As a college football fan who has experienced brief moments of exhilaration, but often frustration over the last 18 years, I'm afraid I'm gonna be snakebit in less than a week by what I'm about to say. But it deserves to be said.

For Notre Dame's football team is 5-0 this season, and they've done it primarily with defense. It's a talented bunch among the linemen and linebackers, and the secondary, despite its youth, has acquitted itself above  modest expectations as the season began.

ND spent a lot of time beating itself last year. It's nice to watch a football game that is played fairly consistently, with a minimum of turnovers (there were none last night in the game against Miami).

From NBC reporter Keith Arnold:

"Notre Dame hasn’t given up a touchdown over its last 12 quarters, holding Michigan State, Michigan and now Miami out of the end zone. The Irish defense is allowing just 7.8 points a game now, and has surrendered only three touchdowns on the season, the least amount in college football."

On Saturday, they face Stanford University at home. Against Stanford and USC, they simply have not competed effectively for at least the last couple years. But as it will be an accurate measure by which to judge this year's ND team, I'm looking forward to it. 

Go Irish!

Thank goodness it's Thursday

I have been semi-retired for over three years, and occasionally when I'm out doing this or that, driving surface streets for the most part, I glimpse backed-up traffic on the Haggerty Road viaduct overlooking I-94, and consider myself lucky. The road construction in southeastern Michigan over the last two or three months is unprecedented in my personal experience, and I've lived in the area for 35 years.

Beginning this week, however, I began to use other words to describe the road construction around here. They're not polysyllabic words, but they're colorful.

The good news? I returned to work at Ford Motor Company as a part-time employee, three days a week, and I'm thrilled. I work in Transmission and Driveline Engineering on Plymouth Road Livonia , and I have a Finance-related assignment that is both challenging and something desired by the organization, even at senior management levels.

Many moons ago, I began my career at Ford in the building to which I now travel three days each week, and one of my best assignments ever in my career was also at TDE in Livonia, several years ago.

The wrinkle? Getting there! Years ago, my commute from Belleville up I-275 was 25 minutes, with infrequent traffic backups.  Now, it's like traveling through a bombed-out wasteland where commuters inch along on superhighways, their eyes hollow with dark circles, blood pressure at unsafe levels.

at the beginning of my Monday morning commute, approaching the intersection of Huron River Drive and Haggerty, metropark entrance on the right, was a long line of traffic. It took three lights to turn left onto Haggerty, where I was stopped again by a train crossing the tracks. The train was moving slowwwwwly.

I took the ramp to I-94 east, not recalling what to expect at the I-275 northbound ramp. I was in luck - the ramp was scheduled to be closed later that day, but I beat the bulwarks, just this once.

With two lanes open on I-275, I figured it would be easy getting to work. But if I chose an alternative route, forget the Ecorse Road off-ramp - it's closed. I recall that that area got quite an upgrade only a few years ago when Visteon came to town. How is it that the road deteriorated so badly in a relatively short period?

When I reached the Michigan Ave. exit, traffic slowed to a crawl. Traffic on the on-ramp was backed up, and we slowed to a halt for stretches of time. Same at Ford Road, and just north of Ford, a five-car accident. If you think it's bad being stuck in traffic, try being those guys.

I reached Plymouth Road, treated myself to a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts, and arrived at work over an hour since I left home. There's gotta be a better way - literally.

Today, Thursday, I'm off work, thank goodness, although I do have a few errands, one that takes me to Ann Arbor. Hope springs eternal.

Living in the land of the Wolverine

The University of Notre Dame plays a football game against the University of Michigan on Saturday night, under the lights in Notre Dame Stadium.

The ND campus is a wonderful place to visit, especially in the fall on a football Saturday: the Golden Dome, the Grotto, Sacred Heart Basilica including Mass after the game, with the women's choir in the loft above singing in celestial fashion, Touchdown Jesus, the bookstore, a steaming brat, young families just beginning their own traditions, senior folk celebrating yet another year of Irish football, bright young people everywhere.

Over the years, living as an ND fan in the land of the Wolverine has seen its ups - last-minute field goals, Rocket Ismail punt returns (whether happened to exciting punt returns, by the way?) and downs - think the last three years, particularly last year, when Michigan, down 24-7 to ND, made a highly improbable fourth quarter comeback and won the game with two seconds left.

That's one of the things I've admired about the Michigan football team over the years - they don't give up, and they believe in themselves until the game is over. You may beat them, but in order to do so you have to continue beating them it until the game is over.

Denard Robinson personifies this quality. The Irish had him contained until the final quarter, but he could see that there was still time left in the game, when he began to torch Irish defenders until the heartbreaking, supremely frustrating climax.

This year, I'm hoping the outcome is different. The ND defensive line is special this year, and the offense has played mostly smart games, particularly with a new quarterback - the team has a positive turnover margin this year. I'm looking forward especially to establishing the running game, early. Not only is it sound football strategy, it's more fun to watch.

So, here's to my beloved Irish and a victory over U-M on Saturday, breaking their 3-0 losing streak to U-M and propelling ND to 4-0 on the season, for the first time in over a decade. Go Irish!

Tickets to my memories, part 1

I save ticket stubs to events I've really enjoyed, as a reminder of where I've been and what was important to me.

The latest ticket stub was from yesterday, when I went with Jan to see "The Dark Knight Rises," the last installment in Christopher Nolan's masterful Batman trilogy. I admire art skillfully conceived and executed, and Nolan did it in that movie. Clearly one of my top ten all-time favorite movies. Top on the list? Probably "The French Connection." Loved the look and feel of that movie, the NYC streets, the car chase, Gene Hackman.

The next ticket was one I didn't use, something I'd wanted to do for years - see the DSO in a summer outdoors concert. Our Kelly got us the tickets, but we were unable to go. Aaaaaargh. Next year.

Ah, a ticket from this year's boat show, a longstanding tradition among my friends - sort of a guys' night out. The boat show is the pretext; we're all looking forward to dinner. My son Matthew has joined us for years, but he was unable to make it this year. But Kel's beau Chris did, and it great to have him with us. And he said he enjoyed himself!

Just imagine: Amma and Pa on the lam

Over coffee in the living room this morning, Jan asked me if the Ambassador Bridge had re-opened. Reaching for my trusty smartphone, I confirmed that it had, after a bomb threat closed it yesterday.

We began talking about the very serious consequences about making a bomb threat. Jail time with a conviction has to be measured in years, don't you think?

Then we began laughing about our trying to pull off a bomb threat without being detected, and how we would be hopeless. We'd be identified by the authorities as "persons of interest" within an hour of phoning in the threat, the authorities having cleverly traced the call. We have no idea how to do such things in a manner that can't be detected.

Within 90 minutes, we would be identified as the suspects, and would be arraigned the same day. Bail would not be available, given the seriousness of the crime. We would be interrogated separately under hot lights.

If we tried to escape before being captured, we wouldn't get far. We thought about high-tailing it to our grandson Noah's house, with authorities hot on our trail. If the police arrived at the house, we'd run out the back door but when the police entered the house Noah, in his innocence, would tell them exactly when we had left, and the direction in which we were headed.

No sir, a life of crime isn't for us. If the moral transgression and the guilt that follows the willful commission of a crime isn't a sufficient deterrent, and we like to think it always would, then common sense would tell us that our lack of skills in this area, and the certainty of being swiftly captured and imprisoned, would tip the scales against a life of crime for Amma and Pa. Besides, we'd miss visiting Noah.

House proud, or, we'll rest when it rains

My wife and I have been working on the outside of our home for the last few weeks. The biggest project has been the wooden deck surrounding all but the east side of the house - 1,500 square feet of wood, power washed followed by sealing with 20 gallons of Olympic weather seal. The sealing's mostly done, and may be completed early next week.

The wood needs to be dry for 48 hours before applying the seal, and after applying, rain should not be in the forecast for another 24 hours. So you need about four consecutive days of no rain, not altogether easy even during this unusually dry summer.

The result has exceeded my expectations. The wood has seen much, it is true, but it's held up nicely. I like the shade of the wood and the simple honesty of the grain and the texture.

When you're nearing completion on an outdoor project, do you walk away from your home a short distance, turn around, and admire your work from the edge of the road? When we used to live in the city of Belleville, we would often cross West Columbia Ave. and admire our work from the St. Anthony Church front lawn. We still do it at our current home.

My wife Jan is implementing some ideas she's had for the front of the house, and it's working out nicely. A couple new plants, an old refurbished table and set of chairs, a little color, a little fresh paint, and voila! - transformation before your very eyes.

Jan had begun to say that our home had begun to look dull and uninviting. Each day, she grows increasingly happier with the result of our work, and we're on the right track, thanks to her ideas and our daily effort.

You decorated my life, part 1

I have a home office in which I work. It used to be utilitarian - a computer, printer, mouse, piles of papers, desk drawers, a clock, office supplies like pens and a stapler and a tape dispenser.

In the last 18 months, however, my wife Jan has swept in and, with good ideas guided by an overall gift for decorating, has transformed it into quite a special place for me.

The most recent additions are two large picture frames on the door leading to what we call the utility room - washer, dryer, storage space, furnace, hot water heater.

You have to be careful that the stuff in storage doesn't overwhelm you. We have about four down-filled white comforters of various conditions and sizes stored in one of these closets , and we are loath to get rid of them in what seems a sensible manner, because they may be useful someday to someone.

But I digress - hoarder guilt is hard to shake.

The top picture frame is black, and contains an oversize photo of Noah jetting down a slippery slide toward the photographer, my son Matthew. The expression on Noah's wet face, hair matted on his forehead, is one of unbridled joy, and it makes you happy just to look at it. It is fun displayed in a photo.

If you look carefully at it, you will see in the upper left-hand corner a shadowy face, and it is smiling. That is me, Noah's Pa, who just pushed Noah down the slide. I love that photo.

Below it is a black-framed collage of nine different photos. The common denominator is Noah, sometimes depicted by himself, more often with those who love him dearly.

In the upper left is baby Noah with his mom Crystal, who is beaming at her new son. In the lower right is Aunt Kelly planting a kiss on his cheek. At top center is the great photo taken by Kel of Matthew and Noah on a dock overlooking Belleville Lake, as the sun sets in the foreground, framing the ducks happily swimming within feet of them. And although you can't see his face, Noah, you just know, is delighted and fascinated.

It's these types of things that my wife does that not only shares that gift of hers with me, reminding when I pause during writing that I am loved, but who shares her affection and kindnesses in myriad ways, including a note on the computer keyboard each morning.

This morning's message: Make today ridiculously amazing! (for us!).

There is much more to describe in these photos and in my special office, thanks to Jan. We'll leave that for another day. Time to start our day.

A curious journey

Depending on when and where and with whom he was, his name was Yellow, or Blaze, or Luke. Life began for him this spring with a mom and a sister, under my front deck at home.

It was fun, feeding and playing with mom and her two kittens, but Jan and I knew that it wouldn't and shouldn’t last. Living outdoors, even under shelter, can be rough, and predators abound in our neighborhood. We’d already lost some baby birds to a raccoon who attacked a birdhouse at the back of the house. The raccoon reached down from our second floor back deck, tore off part of the roof of the birdhouse, and snatched the babies. As Jan and I reconstructed the way the story likely unfolded, we swore it wouldn’t happen again to the cats.

And so we fed Mom each morning and evening, and her kittens began to eat a bit as well. It was obvious that they were still nursing. We put a pet carrier on the deck, and the plan was to wait for the two kittens to go inside the carrier, close the door, and pick mom up and place her in the carrier with her kittens.

That was the theory, but it took a few weeks for this to happen. One kitten might wander into the carrier, but the other would stay out. But one morning, Jan breathlessly whispered to me that both kittens were in the carrier, and she had just closed the door.

I told her to keep the door shut. I picked up the mom, whose name is Minnie (for “Skinny Minnie”) and placed her in the carrier as well.

As Jan went to work, I drove to the Friends of Michigan Animal Rescue in Sumpter Township, the three cats in the carrier next to me on the passenger seat. FMAR co-owner Marcy LaFramboise was kind enough to take the cats, gave all of them their vaccinations, and spayed or neutered each cat.

I’m pleased to say that the two kittens already have been adopted, although mom is still at the shelter. For my money, she’d make a darn good housecat. She’s affectionate, she’s calm, and although she can’t bear any more litters, she was a wonderful mom to those two kittens, despite trying circumstances.

The small tabby we had named Yellow, re-named Blaze at the shelter, traveled one day with other animals to Main Street for the Strawberry Festival, to display them to festival visitors for adoption. Jane Vesche at Main Street Flowers was working in her store at the festival across the street, and Alec, her young grandson, was there. Getting a little bored, Alec asked to go across the street to see the animals. After being escorted across the street and walking around a bit, he returned to the store, and a little later, asked his grandfather Ron Vesche to go see his cat.

His cat? Ron asked Jane what was going on, but Jane confessed that she was puzzled as well by what Alec had said. One thing led to another, and Jane and Ron adopted the cat for their grandson Alec.

Jan and I learned all this is a roundabout way, as we talked with Jane, who had not known until we spoke that it was one of the cats at our house.

I have to say I like happy endings, especially when it comes to down-on-their-luck animals. Many thanks to Marcy and to Jane and to Ron for their kindness, and to the hand of Providence, which introduced Alec to a young tabby whose name is now Luke, who have become fast friends.

Now, if only some equally kind soul would adopt Minnie…that would be superb.

Jerry LaVaute is a special writer for Heritage Media. Follow his blogs “Pa’s Blog” and “The eye of the storm” at http://jlavaute.blogspot.com. He can be reached at glavaute@gmail.com or call 734-740-0062.

Remembering fathers and sons

The Dead Dads Club

It is 1990. I am driving east, at high speed. The sun is shining, and the V-8 engine is humming at 2,000 RPM. We are somewhere in Canada.

Most other engines would be revving around 3,000 RPM at this speed, but not my Mustang. You barely tax her at 80 MPH. As a Ford coworker once said, quoting a magazine story, it has “gobs and gobs of torque.” And my good friend Ron Vesche, no doubt, would agree.

The top is down, and the wind is whistling by. Miles of pavement vanish beneath my tires, and farmland slips past my field of vision, at an astonishing pace. The vista is cooled by my cheap sunglasses.

To my right is my son Matthew, who is 11. He is my sole partner on this trip to NY, unusual for a nuclear family like mine that visits its extended family en masse, with wife and daughter in tow.

Our music of choice, volume turned way up to enable listening in a convertible, is Dire Straits’ rock epic titled “Telegraph Road.”

It is written by a musician whose name is Mark Knopfler, someone whose music I’ve listened to for years, someone at whom I still marvel at the artistry, the talent and the ability to touch my soul.

Knopfler’s songs cover a spectacular variety of subjects, and often feature wry commentary on our times. He once wrote a song about heavyweight boxer Sonny Liston, and another about Ray Kroc, the businessman who developed McDonald’s and the fast food business into what we know today.

Knopfler depicts Kroc as a ruthless businessman who discovers the burgeoning hamburger stand run by the McDonald brothers in southern California, recognizes a good thing when he sees it, and pushes relentlessly to achieve his dream:

My name’s not Crock, it’s Kroc with a “K,”

Like Crocodile, but not spelled that way

It’s dog eat dog, and rat eat rat

Kroc-style, Boom! Like that

The story in “Telegraph Road,” on the other hand, is about the birth, life and decay of a community. It consumes over 14 minutes, telling the tale of a young man who came to an area with land that was rich and fertile, and decided to put down roots and farm the land there, in the manner I suppose that most communities get started.

A community forms around the farm, the Industrial Revolution takes over, workers are enlisted in the service of the company, which begins to struggle, closes its doors and lays off its workers.

The workers, who have enjoyed the benefits the company provides, are surprised by the bad turn. They know their livelihood is at risk, but they’re not sure why, in a poignant lament:

I wanna go to work, but they shut it down

I gotta right to go to work, but there’s no work here to be found

And they say we’re gonna have to pay what’s owed

We’re gonna have to reap from some seed that’s been sowed

And the birds up on the wires

And the telegraph poles

They can always fly away from this rain and this cold

You can hear them singin’ out the telegraph code

All the way…down the Telegraph Road

Despite the subject, which often reminds me of conditions in SE MI, it is great traveling music, with powerful, driving instrumental riffs.

As it plays back to us on cassette tape, Matthew and the Mustang and I will set the family record for a trip to NY – 7.5 hours. The record still stands, a lasting testament to two “busy men” on a mission.

This is an unusual trip for just the two of us. My father, a lifelong resident of Syracuse, NY, has had a heart attack. After a short recovery in a hospital, he was released and has returned home.

He lives by himself, after he and my mother divorced years ago. He has a girl friend, and I think he’s happy. But I want to see him. It was a close call, and I need a visit.

And it’s a good visit with my Dad. We spend a few days with each other, three men of all ages, in an unusual situation.

You would think, given our different stations in life, we’d get on each others’ nerves. But love, mutual affection and the easygoing tolerance common to most men prevail, and we enjoy each others’ company. Matthew and I return to MI a few days later, and things get back to normal.

But, like John Lennon said, life is something that happens when you’re busy making other plans.

-------------

It is March 1991, a few months after my previous trip. I am once again traveling east, but this is different. My world has changed, forever.

It is nighttime. The darkness is illuminated by the moon hanging in the sky high above us, and by the snow that lies on the ground. My wife and daughter are with Matthew and me as we plow steadily eastward.

I am not driving, and I no longer have my Mustang. I have a new Explorer, and my wife is driving, bless her soul, ever my helpmate. She offered to drive, knowing I’d be distracted during the long ride.

In the passenger seat, I stare out the window, lost in thought and pain and sorrow, struggling with tears and a sadness that is unlike anything I have experienced.

Staring at the moon on my right, I am silent, although sighs punctuate the cadence of my thoughts as we slice through the darkness.

My music of choice? “Winter Solstice II,” a compilation of New Age instrumental music selections that is at turns reflective, at turns melancholy, like me. I have my first car CD player in the Explorer, and the fidelity is amazing, just like they say.

My dad has died, suddenly. He had another heart attack in his apartment, and didn’t survive this one. And I will never, ever forget the circumstances in which I learned this. It is burned indelibly in a memory that forgets much, but not this:

I was playing basketball in the driveway with Matthew, at the house in Belleville in which I lived for twenty years, across from St. Anthony Church.

It was an unusually nice day in March, and spring, I thought, couldn’t be far off.

Life was good. I’d left work early, having completed a project to select a new V6 engine for the all-new Ford F150 pickup truck, to be introduced in 1995.

It was and remains one of the high points in my career. The Controller of Truck Operations sent me a congratulatory e-mail that I retain to this day. And he was right – I’d done a great job on the assignment. My cost analysis and the presentation of the results was thorough and clear, leading to a high-confidence decision.

My wife was preparing dinner in the kitchen, and came to the door, saying I should come, quickly. My sister Kathy was on the phone, and she didn’t sound good.

I ran across the lawn to the house, took the phone from my wife, and listened to Kathy, on the other end, scream, helplessly, emotions ripped and raw, “Dad’s dead! Dad’s dead!”

Whew. You just don’t forget that. The shock stunned me, a condition that lasted several days. There’s nothing with which to compare it.

I return to NY to mourn my Dad’s passing. The child in me wishes to be comforted, and my wife rises to the task. But I have responsibilities as well to shoulder: my Dad has made me the co-executor of his estate, and I am responsible for funeral arrangements.

I do reasonably well, with the help of several people. I return to MI a few days later, and spend another year or so dealing with lawyers, Probate Court and the distribution of his estate.

It is hard, losing a parent. And the first one is especially difficult, because you can’t prepare for it. You lose one of your key anchors in life, a moral and attitudinal grounding that is temporarily stolen.

And the reality of actuarial tables suggests that the first parent to be lost will be your father. So the loss of a father is, for many like me, a very difficult loss.

A recent episode of the TV show “Gray’s Anatomy” focused on such a loss. A character’s father died in the hospital after a struggle with cancer. This Dad had meant a great deal to his family. They gathered around his hospital bed, and his wife and three sons touched him tenderly and said their goodbyes.

The character, a young intern, walked away to be alone. Another intern, a woman, left the room to find him outside the hospital, standing quietly alone.

She approached him, observed a few polite moments of silence, and welcomed him as a new member of what she called “The Dead Dads Club,” a club that no one chooses to join, but in which membership is inevitable. She felt his pain, it was clear, and was sad to have a new member in the club, but she wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. Other members of this club were available to help.

Your dad and mom, after all, are life for you for so many years. And when the physical support you need becomes less and less necessary, sometimes even resented as you grow older, the emotional support continues to nurture and sustain.

And, despite a loving family that surrounds you as you become an adult, including a knowing spouse and sympathetic children, this emotional support has no direct substitute. It is not replaceable.

The essence of this loss is simply this: You don’t know life without your parents. So when one exits the scene, permanently, your world gets whacked, and it requires all the maturity you can muster, and the support of loved ones, simply to get past it.

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It is late 1991, a few months after I joined the Dead Dads Club. Dire Straits has released a new album, titled “On Every Street. “ I buy the CD.

The title song is about dealing with loss, in which the person who has survived struggles to remember and to recover someone who’s been lost to them.

I listen, and I listen again. The song is poignant, well-written, melancholy. It is written for me, I think, and I’m happy to know that someone understands how I feel about this loss, as I search, unsuccessfully, for answers:

The streetcar symphony crashes into space

The moon is hangin’ upside down

I don’t know why it is I’m still on the case

It’s a ravenous town

And every victory has a taste that’s bittersweet

And it’s your face I’m lookin’ for

On every street

Reflect for a moment on the verse above: The moon is hangin’ upside down. That’s what it was like the evening we went back to NY, after I learned my father had died. The world had changed, forever, and no longer made as much sense. Things, including the natural order of things, were indeed upside down. Knopfler had nailed my mood, again.

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It is 2005. Matthew has scored tickets to an outdoor summer concert with Mark Knopfler at Meadowbrook. Knopfler runs through a few songs, and he pauses momentarily.

Alone on stage, Knopfler begins to play his guitar. The notes are barely audible at first, but soon the strain of music familiar to Matthew and me from years earlier begins to float across the summer evening.

And Matthew, to my right, elbows me excitedly and says, “Telegraph Road, Dad – Telegraph Road.”

And Matthew is right. And once again, my son and I share an unbreakable bond, an unbeatable moment that began with a wild ride east to visit my Dad. Together, for a few days, the three of us shared time w/ each other, loved each other, just as I was doing with Matthew that evening at Meadowbrook.

This year, it will be 16 years since my Dad died. And I will spend another Father’s Day in which my kids focus on me, but I’m unable to pay practical tribute to a man to whom I owe much, and who I am beginning to resemble, in physical appearance and personal habits, in startling ways.

I still miss my Dad - always will. But, in a recent task driven by an almost-unconscious need, I burned a couple CD’s with Mark Knopfler’s music, using an iTunes gift card my kids gave me on Father’s Day 2005, and I plan to give it to Matthew the next time I see him.

At a superficial level, I do this because I know Matthew will enjoy it, and I want to enhance this common interest with him.

But at a deeper level, one that will go unspoken between Matthew and me, I guess it’s my way of completing the circle – my Dad would be pleased to see the person that Matthew has become.

And although I can no longer honor my Dad in ways in which he can respond in a practical way, I can sure as heck honor his grandson, and in so doing make my Dad happy. I know this, for a fact.

Happy anniversary, Jan

I married the most amazing woman almost 37 years ago. She is possessed of an inexhaustible wellspring of love, of which I am the principal but by no means the only beneficiary; kindness, thoughtfulness, good judgment informed by common sense, often superior to mine.

Together, we raised two fine children, and she did most of the heavy lifting. With respect to our parenting roles, I was mostly the good-time Charlie with the kids, enjoying and having fun with them, and she was the loving, tender caregiver and sometime disciplinarian. To this day, if my kids become sick, it's mom they call.

She sometimes did things that I was unable to do because of my job, and she was there for them during the day, as they grew up. She was the one who took my daughter Kelly to St. Joe's ER after a terrible burn on Kelly's wrist; it was I who rushed to the hospital from Dearborn.

It was she who first learned about a car accident on Belleville Road in which my son Matthew was involved. Envision the scene: she's in the Belleville High School auditorium for a school-related assembly, when former Van Buren Schools Superintendent Jim Richendollar walks up behind her. He whispers to her that Matthew has been taken to a hospital after a car accident, but he doesn't know the details.

Off she went, again alone. I joined her at the hospital, again traveling from Dearborn. In both cases, the kids were fine, although Kel still has a subtle scar on her wrist.

Apart from emergencies, she insisted, despite the blandishments of Ford Motor Company, that I be there for them, even as a crisis at work sometimes beckoned. We were there for our kids' practices, games, recitals. Soccer, track, cross country, basketball, dance, proms - we did these together, and I'm so glad we did. She's been teaching me now for many years about what's truly important in life, and I'm so glad I listened.

And so, together, we raised our children and lived our lives. Looking back on it, it's amazing how all the time has passed, but pass it did.

We met in 1972 in Auburn, New York. I was attending a nearby college, and she had enrolled as a freshman at Auburn Community College. My sister was her roommate, and with my father I was painting the kitchen of the apartment in which they would room with a couple other girls during the school year.

I was on a stepladder, and my back was to her as she entered the room. She said later that she was taken aback by my appearance, explaining that she had thought I was my sister's younger brother. One thing led to another, we began dating, mostly over games of chess - neither of us had any money - graduated, married about a year later, moved to Michigan to begin my career with Ford, had our two children a few years later.

Throughout it all, she's been my extraordinary and loving helpmate, nay, partner. She still writes notes to me that I see in the morning, on the computer keyboard on which I'm now typing. This morning's message: "You are my very favorite person!"

I've learned much from her, particularly how to behave toward and to care for others. I've said that, wherever I am, if I'm with her, I'm with the nicest person in the room.

Happy anniversary, Jan. Here's to many more. I love you.

The legacy

Three stray cats, a mother and her two kittens - one yellow, one black - adopted us a few weeks ago. We had seen the mother hanging around the house, and she didn't appear to be afraid of us. I can't recall when we saw the whole family, but Jan and I decided to begin to feed them, if only to help the helpless, vulnerable kittens and their mom who was nursing them.

They appeared to live under our deck at the front of the house. My dog Moses had begun to dig a tunnel under the deck to get to them. We corralled him in the house, and bought canned cat food and solid kitten food, and put a bowl of each out on the deck in the morning before Jan went to work, and in the evening as it got cooler outside. We sat in our deck chairs and watched what appeared to be a happy, thriving family.

I named the mother "Minnie," for "Skinny Minnie." Was she ever - skin and bones, but with six tiny teats under her belly to feed her babies, whom we called Yellow and Black. When we brought the food out, Minnie normally appeared in a few moments. A couple times, we saw her trotting toward us, coming from the east or west. She set herself to eating the canned food.

When she moved on to the hard food, she slowed eating, and began growling in an endearing way. She was calling her babies up to eat, to play, to have fun for a bit.

We never were able to touch the babies. They were skittish. If we laid so much as a finger on them, they'd scoot under the deck and re-emerge slowly.

It was great fun to watch them play. Mom would often groom herself, sitting in a relaxed fashion on the deck, and the kittens would cavort together, often quite funny.

As you grow older, you wonder what your legacy will be among those who survive you. I said to Jan that at least we'll be remembered for giving some dogs and cats some good homes, what has become a small parade of dogs and cats through our lives, each of them well taken care of. And this time, it didn't matter whether they belonged to us. We couldn't help ourselves - they needed someone.

We're not alone. There is a veritable industry of abandoned animal caregivers that is thriving, including the Friends of Michigan Animal Rescue organization in the Belleville area, to whom we brought our cats. Many thanks to them - an organization that runs on kindness, energy and commitment.

Because the cats couldn't stay at our house. The situation with the nice weather wouldn't last, and the kittens would grow and become feral. Minnie and Black would inevitably become pregnant, creating more trouble for all of us. We had just lost some baby birds to a clever, resourceful, persistent raccoon on the back deck, and we couldn't bear the thought of losing the kittens in a similar manner.

So we said goodbye last week. We miss them - we were responsible for a while for helping a small family survive and even to have fun and security. And that's enough for now.

Strawberry Festival: working, playing and witnessing

My experience of Belleville’s Strawberry Festival dates back to 1980, when we moved into the house across the street from St. Anthony Church. We had begun attending Mass there, and gradually became more involved with the parish community, including liturgical ministry, Men’s Club, CYO basketball, parish and school committees and, eventually, involvement with the festival itself.

We were slowly being drawn into a community, and more particularly being drawn toward its very fine people. Living in the shadow of a major part of the festival could at times be harsh, with dust, noise, lights, hundreds of people and vehicle traffic congestion. But we accepted it each year as it rolled around, and gradually became very involved in the Strawberry Festival.

The festival continues to play a role in my life, and as I look back on my initial and then more recent experience I find it helpful to view it as being working, playing and witnessing.

Working

The Archdiocese of Detroit had had an annual fundraiser program called the Archdiocesan Development Fund. The program had after some years run out of steam; the archdiocese breathed new life into it, and began calling it the Catholic Services Appeal. A key part of the new CSA program was personal home visitations to registered parish members, to reach out to them as a community, and to request their financial support for archdiocesan programs.

I volunteered, but I had to find a partner with whom to make the visits. At the time, I was lectoring at the parish, and I asked one of my fellow lectors to join me on CSA home visitations. His name was Richard Korgal. Richard agreed to join me, but there was a catch: I had to help him collect money and account for it at the booths sponsored by the parish at the festival. I agreed, and thus began a period of a few years where, every Saturday during the festival, I would begin my day in the early afternoon, collect money from the booths sponsored by the church, and sit down and account for it, before depositing it in the bank.

Playing

These Saturdays would last until midnight or so. We missed the mass for the festival workers at around 11:30 p.m., because we were still counting money. But we finished shortly after midnight, and I joined my wife Jan in the bar area on the festival grounds (she had worked in the food booth, where I sometimes helped on Sunday), where a dozen or so parishioners had gathered to relax, to talk about the day, and to laugh together.

I drank a beer or two. I knew from experience that even a single beer after 10 p.m. would produce a headache in me the following morning, but I threw caution to the wind. I was happily exhausted, and I was asked by the other workers to report on how each booth had done, how much money had been raised.

Witnessing

Each year before, during and after the festival I was able to watch a commitment by dozens of St. Anthony Parish parishioners to come together and, in a myriad variety of ways, plan and execute quite a large project each year, on behalf of the entire parish. Its scope was amazing, and my exposure to some very fine people was unforgettable. I still very much admire and respect what those parishioners do.

More recently, I’ve begun reporting on the festival for The View, and by attending committee meetings leading to the festival I’m able to see and to share with our readers the larger picture of the festival. On my peregrinations around town reporting on the festival, I always make a point of stopping at St. Anthony parish. I say hello to old friends and meet some new ones, and I’m reminded of how working together, of volunteering to benefit a common cause can have many positive effects on the individual. It sure did for me.

Jerry LaVaute is a special writer for Heritage Media. Follow his blogs “Pa’s Blog” and “The eye of the storm” at http://jlavaute.blogspot.com. He can be reached at glavaute@gmail.com or call 734-740-0062.

Critter tales

With the warmer weather, the wild animals around the house are more visible. I looked out into the backyard the other day and saw squirrels, birds and butterflies. It was a lovely scene. But other animals - some predators, some prey - stay hidden most of the time.

Sadness, regret and guilt slapped Jan and I the other day when the roof of a venerable old handmade birdhouse, that hung below our upper deck, was destroyed by a hungry raccoon.

About 1 a.m. a couple nights ago, the dogs began furiously barking at something just outside. Jan got up to look, and saw a raccoon on the deck. The raccoon stood his ground for a moment, and slinked away.

A short while later, he reappeared, and the barking dogs again shooed him away. But, unbeknownst to us that night, he'd gotten what he came for: a couple newborn baby birds in the birdhouse. Resting on the upper deck, he reached his paw down to the birdhouse suspended below, destroyed the thin piece of decaying wood that was part of the roof, and presumably reached inside to snare the babies.

Ugh. What an empty feeling. And the blame, the guilt, is at least partly on us.

In front of our house, on the other hand, a stray black cat has given birth to two impossibly cute kittens, and they're living under the front deck.

The mom cat, who we've named Minnie - for "Skinny Minnie" - came out from under the deck the other day, lured by food and what she seemed to like even more: attention and touch. But the kittens were nowhere in sight.

Later, Jan and I went in the house, leaving some cat food outside. As we watched quietly in a darkened bedroom through a window, the kittens came out to play - a black one and a yellow one.

The black one was the braver of the two, but both playfully attacked their mom's tail, and scouted the thick grass just outside their hiding place. But we knew the idyllic scene couldn't last - my dog Moses has discovered their hiding place from their scent below the deck, and has begun to dig a hole next to the deck to get at them. We can control Moses, but it's only a matter of time before the ravenous, brazen raccoon discovers the kittens as well.

So, we called our good friend Vic Franzoi, who volunteers at Friends of Animal Rescue, and got some helpful advice to save the family. But the plan didn't work last night, because the cats didn't cooperate.

Ah well. I can assure you than Jan will be out there again this evening, calling for Winnie, using cat food as bait. But it is to save them from harm, not to harm them. Our consciences won't permit us to lose the babies from two families this season.

First Holy Communion

Late April or May is the month for first communions for children. I witnessed one yesterday at the 4:30 p.m. Mass at St. Thomas a' Becket parish in Canton, among 16 children.

It's always fun to watch. It reminds me of my own children, and my own experience when I was younger: Catholic School (Our Lady of Lourdes), school uniforms, daily prayer in the classroom and the pledge of allegiance, CYO basketball, spelling bees, nuns, walks home from school.

I was in eighth grade with a few of my peers, being assigned a special project on dentistry, when word came over the intercom that President Kennedy had been shot. After we were dismissed, it was a long walk home, followed by a weekend of TV-watching. I was at my grandmother's for a visit on Sunday morning when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot to death.

But I digress. A few things have changed about the Catholic church in the years since, but the respect for sacramental tradition does not wane. The children who are judged to have reached the age of reason, and are henceforth assumed to know right from wrong, are dressed in bright white lacy dresses and pretty little headpieces, dark suits and ties.

I talked briefly with three kids before Mass began yesterday. They acted a little uncomfortable in their dress clothing. But it was swell to joke with the kids, as their well-dressed extended families gathered in the sanctuary, chatting with each other, preparing cameras, ensuring the young behave as if they're in church.

It was a great liturgy. And congratulations to the new communicants and their families. As Pastoral Associate Debbie Miller says, "Welcome to the table of the Lord, boys and girls." Welcome indeed.

The Corps of Discovery

I read a while ago that the famous exploration westward after Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States early in the nineteenth century, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, called itself the "Corps of Discovery."

I was thinking about how this applied to us as my grandson Noah and I embarked on our own journey of discovery in my stationary car (its newness to Noah and the many gadgets inside make the normal locomotion associated with a car a secondary consideration), a walk around the neighborhood to witness the controlled destruction of Coolidge Ave., and scouting for animal lawn ornaments.

At my age, I've experienced much of what I wanted to experience, and a few things that I hadn't wanted, so that although I'm not jaundiced, daily surprises are fewer for me. But when I'm with Noah, discoveries abound.

There's a double benefit for me: I look at the most ordinary things through new eyes, and I am able to take my experience and teach him something. And the reward is, well, consistently amazing. He has a memory that is unmatched, and we can refer back to something that happened even months ago and he remembers.

Our fun and friend relationship as he moved toward the toddler stage began with drumming with our hands; any hard surface would do. The first time I pounded out a quick rhythm, his face lit up as if he'd just discovered the Louisiana Territory. We still drum together, facing each other, on the phone with each other, and he always lights up.

And I am proud and pleased to have briefly entertained this kid filled with gobs of potential, who will someday so far surpass what I've accomplished in my life, that I'm proud simply to have made his acquaintance and to spend a little time with him. And I think the feeling is mutual.

If he's initially wary of something like airplanes flying through the sky, we work on it until his curiosity and sense of adventure win him over, and we explore airplanes.

Yesterday as we watched the road destruction on Coolidge Ave., I pointed to a porta-potty that the construction workers used, and explained it to him. Later at home, when we talked about with Amma, I mentioned that he pointed it out to me after seeing it for the first time a half-hour earlier.

Amma asked him what color it was. Strange question, but she's been working with him on his colors for a few weeks now. He said "pink," and I thought, bad guess, but nice try, kid. And then I recalled that the facility was a light red shade, what some might characterize as the color pink. Color me impressed. I still think it was a lucky guess, but you never can tell with this kid.

A couple weeks ago, I thought about telling him about the Ford Oval logo on all Ford vehicles. I pointed first to my Taurus, and then to his Dad's Taurus. There's an oval on the front and the back of the car, and he walked to the back of the car to show me the other logo. Later, inside the car, he pointed to the Ford oval in the middle of the steering wheel. I had not noticed it until he pointed it out to me.

On the way home after babysitting, we passed a Ford dealership with a tall sign featuring the Ford oval that Amma pointed out to me. And I thought, wow, would Noah be impressed. And then I thought, shoot, imagine taking him to a Ford dealership!

Dozens of cars and trucks to sit in, a shiny dealership showroom to walk around, salespeople to talk with, engines to admire. The Corps of Discovery has a plan for next week.

School schizophrenia

I turned to a neighbor in last night's Van Buren Public Schools' board meeting and said: "It all seems so schizophrenic sometimes, doesn't it?"

At the time, the board was listening to a spending update on the new Belleville High School - total spending budgeted at $80 million, including the approval last night for a $335,000 for projectors, screens, document cameras and interactive devices. An embarrassment of riches, thanks to those who passed the high school millage after several attempts.

And yet, earlier in the same meeting, the board voted 7-0 and 6-1 to lay off a few dozen schools staff and teachers. I understand the difference between already-approved capital spending and ongoing operating expense, which is the critical difference here.

Nonetheless, the feeling is a bit schizophrenic - feast and famine, as it were.

Overtime - bane or boon?

Overtime, in which as a full-time employee you work more than your normal 40 hours each week, is an interesting phenomenon. It has at times helped careers. Excess amounts have admittedly divided families, but it has enriched families at other times. For those who work overtime, it becomes a personal issue: Do I need to? Do I have to? Most of us could use the extra money, that's for sure.

But at what price?

I worked a goodly amount of overtime for many of my years at Ford Motor Company. There were two kinds: paid overtime, in which I was paid 1.5 times the implicit hourly rate of my salary (aka "on the clock"), or casual overtime, in which as as an exempt employee I was expected to do because I was a well-paid professional, expected to get the job done despite tight deadlines and limited resources.

I recall that casual overtime was defined as up to two additional hours each day beyond the eight hours of straight time, five days a week. Although I worked it when needed, the different working cultures in Ford regarding overtime practices differed among exempt salaried employees.

As a Finance person responsible for engineering expense, I often reviewed the rates of paid overtime for different types of employees. I recall that, in good times when Ford was profitable, the overtime as a percent of straight time for design engineers was about 15 percent. In other works, for every 40 hours of straight time the engineers worked, they were paid for overtime for six additional hours each week.

In Finance, I was paid overtime for some types of work through about 1992. I recall working on a new global engine program with my European colleagues in the late 1980's. We were gathering and analyzing results from a cost study for the engine program, which we had requested a few weeks earlier.

I went into the office on a Saturday morning, and didn't leave the office till 16 hours later, at midnight. As I was faxing information to my counterparts in Europe, my phone at my desk a few feet away began ringing. I answered it, and it was my friend, my colleague in Europe. I was in the office at midnight, but England being five hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone in the United States, he was in the office at 5 a.m. Ouch.

But for me and for them, the work weekend wasn't over. I went home shortly after I sent the fax, got some sleep and returned bleary-eyed to the office early Sunday morning. I worked till early afternoon that day, and went home and crashed.

It was around that time that our management concluded that overtime was a costly and habit-forming trap. Casual overtime continued, but hours of overtime required to meet deadlines for key projects was henceforth compensated with what was called "compensatory overtime." For each hour of non-casual overtime that we worked, we were given an hour off.

Now, the time off coming from compensatory overtime had to be used before vacation time off; it had to be used in the year earned, and like any time off, you were asked to be sensitive to yours and others' workload, and not take time off during unusually busy times of the year.

In 1992, I was working on another major engine program, a new V-6 engine for our F-150 truck. An engine designed by engineers in the United States and manufactured next door in Canada was competing against an engine designed and manufactured by our European colleagues. I was asked to put together the cost picture in a manner fair and acceptable to both competing sides.

I burned a pretty fair amount of midnight oil on that project, and it was all compensatory time off. In fact, I had burned through my 80 hours of available compensatory time in February 1992, and I still had ten months to go!

Oddly, however, the additional amount of overtime hours I worked that year were not too bad. It was either dumb luck or conscious management of my workload by me and my management, to avoid overtime spikes to complete important projects.

I concluded that it was in fact a little of both, but Ford's increasing sensitivity toward the issue of overtime, including its cost and its toll on peoples' lives, helped Product Development Finance to wean itself off what one of our Controllers called a "narcotic."

Like a narcotic, you use it when convenient, and it's helpful for a short while, but the cycle of dependence has begun and you are sorely tested to kick the habit, as it were.

Ford PD Finance in my last 20 years managed to kick the habit. Certainly it reduced my income, but the additional hours I was afforded with my family paid dividends, I thought, back then and even today.

Quoteworthy: Quiet

Almost done with a book on personality, focusing on introversion. It's titled "Quiet: the Power of Introversion in a World that can't Stop Talking," by Susan Cain.

Introversion is a behavioral mode I lived for many years, and one I still default to in many situations. And you know what: it's a good thing, much of the time.

I learned about gobs of things, and wrote down some terms the author uses:

• Core personal projects: for something you're really passionate about, something that really turns you on, you become a pseudo-extravert to push it. She uses the example of a highly-successful university professor whose students adore him, and he has to be speaking in public quite often. But because he loves it so much, he does it.
• Hideout sessions, also known as restorative niches: Introverts are defined as being high-reactive, meaning they react more strongly to external stimuli than extraverts. Large crowds, particularly a requirement to speak in front of them or to schmooze with a roomful of people at a cocktail party, are something introverts resist. Now, put them in a corner of the room with one or two people discussing an idea about which they're passionate, and they begin to have fun.
• Between lectures, the university professor would take walks along a riverbank, and when that wasn't available, he would hide in the building's rest room stall number nine for as long as 90 minutes, simply for downtime to collect himself, to become himself again, and to re-enter the extraverted world that he became quite good at it. But he insisted on the downtime, to become himself again.
• Self monitors: Introverts who view the social scene and their naturally-introverted behavior and manage it to a degree to become more extraverted, if only for a while. Easier to do for a loved one, or in support of a core personal project.
• Emotional labor: the work your personality does to deal with the practical and moral issues arising from exposure to stimuli with which you're not emotionally comfortable - crowds, confrontation.

The book is honest, it is thorough, it is thoughtful. I learned a lot.