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!