Space, the final frontier. That’s what I need

I need space! Considering how often my (former) girlfriend kicks me out, you’d think I would have more space than NASA, but that’s not the kind of space I’m talking about here. Emotional space I got in spades.

What I need is physical space. The kind of space I had a couple years back, while still living in the pastoral northern village of Lakeview, where men are men, women are women, and cows outnumber both three-to-one.

Those who have never lived there would describe Lakeview as just one more wide spot in the road between Grand Rapids and Cadillac; nothing special. They would be right, for their part.

They’d also be wrong. Having lived there with the (former) Lovely Mrs. Taylor for nearly 15 years, I can attest to the fact there’s more to Lakeview than you see in the 67 seconds it takes to drive from one end of town to the other. (And yes, I’ve noticed the unhappy number of “formers” in my life these days—I’m beginning to think it’s me.)

Anyway, much of what made Lakeview special were the folks who lived there. Most I liked, some I loved, a few I wasn’t too crazy about. But I could say the same about most places I’ve lived.

My (former, again) neighbors, Jerry and Dave, were especially cool. I’m still “Facebook friends” with them, but we no longer invite each other to backyard barbecues, so it’s not the same. Not the same at all.

While living there, I shopped locally, ate at local restaurants, and subscribed to the local newspaper, though it was badly written and at greater editorial odds with my own political ideologies than are Mein Kampf, Das Kapital and the KKK Newsletter. But it was the local paper and I read it every week.

I miss all of it. But mostly, I miss the space.

These days I hang my hat in Detroit, and though everything is big, big, big, there’s no space in any direction. Except maybe up, and I can’t even be sure of that—I haven’t seen a star in the night sky since moving here. For all I know, there’s a dome over the city.

For 15 years I had nothing but space. Now…well, I can walk for hours in any direction and see traffic, stores and pavement. They have lots and lots of pavement. They spread pavement here like the farmers spread manure back in the town I still think of as home.

I’ll admit it took a while to get used to the smell of manure every spring. I’ll never get used to the smell of pavement. And it does have a smell, make no mistake.

Where manure smelled like life, good black earth, and Michigan potatoes, pavement smells like loss and hushed, lonesome desperation. What do loss and desperation smell like? Pavement, the sidewalk along Livernois. If I were a poet I could find better, prettier words to describe it, but I’m not, so these will have to do.

I don’t care how cold it is this weekend; I think I’m going to do a little backpacking. Somewhere with space.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

There’s good in everyone, even fourth-grade football players

They used to call me “Mosquito,” the guys on St. Isadore Elementary School’s football team. I was in fourth grade and considerably smaller then. I was a runty kid to begin with. Add to that the fact I started school a year early and it was a foregone conclusion that my stature would at least in part dictate my nickname.

I was never quite sure how I wound up on that football team; I’m pretty sure my old man signed me up, hoping I would somehow and against all odds attain the sports hero glory that eluded him in his own childhood. At various times, he also signed me up for Golden Gloves, Young Marines, Little League and Cub Scouts.

I did OK as a Scout, but my boxing, baseball and military skills were no more impressive than were my meager efforts on the football field. On the rare occasions the coach made the mistake of putting me in the game, I could be counted on to do something terrible. The one time I actually handled the ball during a game, I ran 15 yards in the wrong direction before being tackled by members of my own team.

I got beat up a lot during the long walks home.

I probably wouldn’t have gotten clobbered quite so often, but in addition to being the team albatross, I was cursed with a mouth that would not close, no matter how many times it was punched.

I would smart off to guys twice my size (which back then was almost everybody) and then be amazed when they—following the code of the schoolyard—pummeled me into dust.

All this pounding might have made me smarter or at the very least, quieter. Eventually, I suppose it did. I no longer willingly offer my opinions to large, calloused gents in bars. I don’t point out the flaws of others, or even argue too strenuously with those who make note of mine.

I’m a lover, not a fighter. Or would be, if I could find someone to be a lover with. But that’s another story.

The point is (I’m sure there’s one in here somewhere), I got beat up a lot and, all in all, had a pretty grim childhood much of the time.

I’m not complaining. Really. Because if nothing else, my roughshod youth taught me there is good in everyone. (Yes, even my ex-wives.)

I learned this one day on that fourth-grade football field. It was just a practice scrimmage, a weekday afternoon. I remember it was cold; the leaves had vacated the trees and the tang of winter’s implacable advance was in the air.

My dad rarely attended practices, but he was at this one, sitting under a tree on the sidelines and pretending it didn’t bother him that his son couldn’t catch, throw, kick, or in all likelihood recognize a football, much less do anything worthwhile with one.

I was out there on the field, standing where guys who understood the game told me to stand, then getting knocked over by the kid facing me. I was more bowling pin than defensive tackle.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the ball was in my hands! Somebody pointed me toward the goalpost (the correct one, for a change) and the whole team chased me madly as I ran toward it.

Now, I know darn well those guys let me make it to the end zone. Those of the team who took notice of me at all hated my guts. But because my old man was there that day, they allowed me to play the hero.

The following week I was probably beaten up by at least one or two of those same guys, business as usual, but on that day, they decided to do me a kindness.

That one act shaped my whole outlook, my opinion of the human race. I returned the favor the following season by not signing up for the team.

I wonder how I’d look with one of those ‘monk’ haircuts?

If my dates get any stranger, I am going to join a monastery. I don’t know if the brothers will take me in and I readily admit I may have a tough time with that whole “vow of silence” thing, but I’m giving it serious consideration anyway.

In the monastery the crazy women would not be able to find me, or so I hope. Because out here in the real world, they seem to be the only women who do find me!

But before we go any further, let me reiterate for those who’ve never read one of my columns before: I hate dating! Hate it hate it hate it hate it.

Unfortunately, I love women. Or rather, I love being in a relationship with one woman. The Catch-22 of it is, in order to have a woman, one must first find a woman, and the only way I know to do that is dating.

Women must be wooed; flowers must be purchased, dinners bought, car doors opened, poetry written. I don’t mind any of these things. I enjoy them, actually, once I’ve found a candidate interested in being my Significant Other.

It’s the finding of that candidate that wears me down and gets me thinking thoughts of monk-dom.

I’m thinking these somewhat grim and defeatist thoughts today because of a recent liaison with a girl I met through a dating service. She was cute, well-educated and of an age that I wouldn’t feel I was dating either my mother or daughter.

According to her “profile,” she enjoyed camping, quiet walks on the beach, the music of the Beatles, and a “healthy lifestyle.” That last one worried me. I mean, I live a fairly healthy lifestyle, but I don’t enjoy it! I’d much rather eat deep fried foods, watch TV all day, and bathe only occasionally.

At any rate, she suggested we get together for drinks at what I assumed was a nightclub not far from her home. It was not a nightclub, but one of those whole-foods-carrot-juice-health-nut joints that serve only produce grown organically in sunny fields tended exclusively by leprechauns and unicorns.

But I’m a sport. I figured I could hold my nose and drink whatever they put in front of me.

Two minutes after we were seated, my BlackBerry—which I had forgotten to switch off—beeped to notify me of an incoming email.

“What was that?” my date asked.

“Just my phone,” I replied as I silenced the ringer and returned the device to my pocket. I don’t take calls, emails or anything else when I’m in a social situation.

“Oh…My…God!” said my date. “You have a cell phone in here?”

Turns out (according to my date, who went on about it at length) cell phones, PDAs, computers, ATM machines, barbecue grills, electrical wiring, microwave ovens, televisions and video game consoles all inundate us daily with cancer-causing radiation.

She made me put my cell phone out in the car before we could finish our wheat grass juice, or whatever the heck it was. (It tasted like lawn.)

The date was mercifully short. She was as glad to get away from my irradiated lifestyle as I was to get away from her wheat grass juice and tofu.

I wonder what they’re serving in the monastery tonight. A lot of those monks make great wine.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Seems no matter what, there are reasons to give thanks

I’ve been feeling sorry for myself the past couple weeks. With good reason, my gentler, kinder friends might say. Fortunately, most of my friends are neither gentle nor kind and know me well enough to suggest—during times such as these (my girlfriend dumped me, again)—that I stop being such a big baby and just get on with life.

For this, I thank them. It’s good advice. But advice I generally ignore.

Why? Well, in part because some part of me actually enjoys being a little miserable from time to time. I’m not sure why; it’s probably some psychological defect I can’t afford to have corrected by a professional.

I don’t mind, though; a little melancholy is good for the soul. Good for my soul, anyway.

Especially this time of year, when the trees quiver cold and naked, the last of their October glory raked into piles for hauling and burning, when the first breath of winter shivers every breeze and new rose bushes receive their plastic shrouds.

Sigh.

Losing the love of your life is something one should do at the start of summer, when the world is full of possibilities and hope; not now, not during this funeral procession of a season. But sometimes fate has other ideas.

And so I was feeling sorry for myself. I was, that is, until last Wednesday.

I’ve been walking a lot lately; five, sometimes ten miles every day. My feet are killing me, but like melancholy, a little exercise is good for the soul.

I’m currently living just north of Royal Oak, so walking is not the bucolic, nature-rich excursion I’ve grown accustomed to over the past 20 years. The best one can do around here is to ignore the noise of traffic and try real hard not to get hit by any of it.

The scenery consists of shops that sell lottery tickets, shops that sell ice cream, shops that sell tacos, shops that sell shoes, shops that sell…well, basically, shops. Shops and factories. And shopping centers, most open, a few closed up, boarded over and abandoned, mute tribute to our thriving economy.

It was while walking past one of these that I noticed the bench. It was one of those heavy, plastic jobs, made from recycled milk bottles, and though the shopping center was obviously long closed, the bench remained. I walked toward it with the idea of sitting there and resting my poor, tired feet for a moment.

As I crossed the parking lot, I could see something sitting on the bench. Closer inspection revealed the “something” to be a neatly folded stack of blankets and a pillow. Beneath the bench was a small, filthy cooler, open and empty. A wallet-sized photo of two children, cheaply framed, leaned against the stack of blankets.

This was somebody’s home.

Someone who, unlike me, would not be sleeping in a warm bed tonight. Someone who didn’t have a warm dinner waiting at home. Someone whose closest contact with family was a faded photograph.

The five bucks I had in my wallet remained between two of the blankets when I left. If I’d had more with me, I would have left it.

Not out of pity, but gratitude. Sometimes we need to be reminded of just how good we have it.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.