Life isn’t always good, but sometimes it’s perfect

It was right around this time of year that I had the best day of my life. I believe (for no logical reason) that to each life, a certain measure of perfect moments are meted out at birth.

How many of these moments you encounter along the way depends in large part on the life you lead, how hard you’re willing to seek out those moments. You won’t find them on Facebook, or while watching reruns of “Dancing With the Stars.”

I found one of my perfect moments, and the best so far, in Canada. It was 1975, and I was backpacking along the Bruce Trail, a wilderness preserve running the length of the Niagara Escarpment. Not a trail for beginners, the Bruce traverses over 500 miles of some of the most untrammeled wilderness one can hope to find in the modern world.

And this time of year, in the early spring, it’s especially dicey, since the trail is only poorly marked at the best of times and in the spring it often peters out into impassable marshes, wetlands or densely-populated stands of pine or maple.

It’s not hard to get lost. And while 500 miles may not seem like a lot when you’re passing overhead in a 747, when you’re on foot, carrying a heavy backpack and a rapidly diminishing supply of Lipton Cup-a-Soup – your only food source – it is large indeed.

The trail was sparsely populated in the early spring; it had been four days since I’d seen other hikers. That had been a U of M history professor and her teenage son; they’d caught me napping buck naked on a bed of soft loam by a waterfall. But that’s a story I’ve told before; I’m sure it’s floating around the internet somewhere if you’re curious.

Three days earlier, a mother black bear and her two cubs had ravaged my backpack in the middle of the night and made off with all my food, with the exception of the Lipton’s. Cream of mushroom, if you’re wondering. Food even a bear wouldn’t eat. I’d been living on that since then.

I was down to my last envelope when I realized I’d lost the trail. In theory, all I had to do was listen for the sound of water. That would be the Georgian Bay. I knew I was somewhere between the towns of Lion’s Head and Owen Sound. Unfortunately, “somewhere” encompassed a whole lot of “nowhere.”

As I often do when it looks like all hope is lost, I sat down to eat. The packet of Cup-a-Soup did not exactly fill me to bloating, but it did momentarily tame the tiger roaring away in my empty belly.

While enjoying my scant repast, I took my bearings as best I could using the sun (which was mercifully bright and warm this day) and my old Cub Scout compass. I figured if I hiked south and east, I would eventually find the trail again.

Fast forward eight hours: I was no longer so sure. I set up my bug tent in a soft bed of pine needles and fell into exhausted sleep.

The next morning dawned cold but sunny and I continued my wandering route toward what I hoped would be civilization. Hours passed.

Hunger, exhaustion, solitude. By the time I limped into a small fishing village located bayside, I was a cleaned out shell of a man. All I wanted was a Coke, some donuts, and a cheap hotel room.

At first glimmer, the town seemed storybook perfect. Idyllic little homes set along the main (and only) street, well-tended yards, a ramshackle general store, a white, steeple-topped church.

But no people. None. At 11 a.m. on a whatever day it was (I had lost track). The general store was locked up. It took a few minutes of walking along the main street, but eventually I started getting creeped out by the complete emptiness of the place.

If Rod Serling had stepped around a corner and yelled “Gotcha,” I would not have been surprised. I sat on the general store’s wooden porch to figure out what to do next.

I was so hungry that – for the first and last time in my life – I considered a little breaking and entering. I’d grab a box of donuts and a Coke and leave ten bucks American on the counter. No harm, no foul.

Before I got the chance to begin this life of crime, the church bell rang. The double doors flew open and the congregants spilled out, including the owner of the store. He saw me sitting on his porch and crossed the road.

“Hiker?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“We’re closed,” he said, “sorry.”

“Can I just get some donuts? I’m really hungry, sir. A bear ate my food.”

“Well, I suppose I could open up for just a minute,” he said, smiling. “Christian thing to do and all that. Guess I can’t let you go hungry on Easter.”

Twenty minutes later I was sitting on a dock in the spring sunshine, my back propped against my recently-resupplied backpack. The reflections on the pristine waters of the bay, the sweet, innocent scent of April in the air, my mouth crammed to capacity with chocolate covered pastries … it was one of my perfect moments and I knew it.

Sometimes even now when things get tough I remember that day. For all the bad that happens in an ordinary life, there is an equal measure of good.

You just gotta find it.

Mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

Fear is the primary ingredient in Parent Soup

Until you have kids, you never really know what fear is. I’m talking real fear here, not some drive-in monster movie eek, followed by popcorn and soda, but the kind of fear that brings down giants, that tears at your soul and summons every bad demon within 1,000 miles to live, for a time, in your very heart.

The kind of fear that can be caused by only one thing. A missing child.

Almost every parent has experienced that “Where’s Johnny?” moment at least once, the moment your ears frantically demand an “I’m here, mom!” from across the parking lot.

Among my nefarious offspring, it was my daughter, Aubreii, who was the real escape artist. She went missing so often it was miracle I didn’t just start letting her find her own way home. But I didn’t. I’m her father; I was genetically predisposed to walk the neighborhood in abject terror until she turned up.

She always did. But not always right away.

If you’re thinking I was a terrible, neglectful parent, you probably don’t have kids of your own. I kept a close on eye on the monsters, from birth through tenth grade or so, after which I let up my vigilance, but only in small increments over several years.

By the time she was five years old, my daughter could have escaped Attica or some death row super-max with ease. She once tunneled – yes, tunneled – under a fence surrounding our back yard. She had to move a pile of boulders larger than her head – I’d piled them against the fence specifically to thwart her escape attempts – before she could begin digging her way to freedom. She used a sandbox shovel. She was four at the time.

I swear, the kid carried wire cutters in her diaper.

My sons, Jordan and Jim Bob, were a different story. They followed me around like baby ducks. They’re both grown men now and I can probably still tell you exactly where they are at any time on any given day.

That’s what made it so scary the day Jordan went missing.

He and his sister (James was still several years off) were outside playing hide-and-seek with some neighbor kids. As was usually the case, they were outside, then inside, then outside, then inside, outside-inside-outside-inside – you get the picture. There was a lot of door-banging going on, but most of that was drowned out by the sound of screaming first-graders. So it didn’t bother me much.

It was summer vacation, getting on toward dinner time. Eventually, Annie, Kristen, Leonard, Sam and all the other kids were hollered home for supper.

Aubreii rolled into the kitchen (literally; she wore little pink, plastic roller skates that entire summer) with winded enquiries as to what Chez Dad would be serving that evening. She was gratified to learn pizza was again on the menu, since I was on deadline for a small magazine article and hadn’t had time to cook.

“Get your brother and wash up,” I told her. She was gone a couple minutes. When she returned, she said the words every parent fears more than zombies, the apocalypse, and reruns of “Dancing With the Stars.”

“I can’t find him.”

“What do you mean? Did you call outside for him?”

She admitted she hadn’t, so I did. Nothing.

“Did you check his bedroom?” I asked. She had, but I checked again anyway. Nothing.

I walked around the house, then around the neighborhood, bellowing his name every five seconds or so. A few neighbors stepped out their front doors.Then a few more. This was a neighborhood made up of young families and it didn’t take long for the search party to form.

The search expanded, block-by-block, the panic growing. Doors were knocked on. Questions were asked. “Have you seen this little boy? Blonde hair, blue eyes, six years old? Probably picking his nose?”

The police arrived and joined the search. Two cars, four officers. Going door-to-door, asking questions which, frankly, nearly killed me: “Have you seen any strange cars in the neighborhood? Anyone driving slowly? Any strangers?”

Lord, I’ll tell ya, it’s been 30 years and I can still barely write about it without a trace of that old, familiar terror rising like a bubble in my throat.

One officer asked to see his bedroom, even though I’d already checked there. It was while picking through the laundry hamper that the cop found Jordan, napping soundly among the towels and sheets.

If you’re a parent, you already know what I felt at that moment. If you’re not, no words of mine can ever convey that feeling.

Fear. It goes part and parcel with parenthood. And here’s the part that’s most awful, that nobody tells you about until it’s too late: It doesn’t end when they grow up and move out. Like life itself, it endures.

Now go hug your kid.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

Chickens or kids, there’s really not that much difference

I mentioned a couple weeks back that Mrs. Taylor (formerly Lori Frankforter) had lost her mind and we are now raising chickens. Turns out I may have overstated the “losing her mind” part.  The idea wasn’t as crazy as it at first seemed.

We have eight hens (pullets, if you’re a chicken person; I’m not; I have no idea what a pullet is, other than it eats a helluva lot of chicken feed). They’re still living in the guest bathroom, ensconced in heated plastic bins with chicken wire tops on them.

I have to admit, at first I thought the idea was ridiculous. Mrs. T (fLF) and I both grew up in the city and have absolutely zero knowledge of anything ag related. Everything I know about farm life I learned from reading “Charlotte’s Web” and watching the movie, “Babe.”

Neither of those sources went into sufficient detail to give me the knowledge needed to establish an agrarian lifestyle. Fortunately, it’s not exactly rocket science.

Rising chickens, it turns out, is a lot like raising kids. When Aubreii, my first child, came along, I was practically a kid myself. At least from the neck up.

I had no idea what fatherhood would entail. Does anyone? And if they did, would anyone be crazy enough to go through with it? Sometimes, ignorance can be a good thing.

Then came Jordan and, via marriage, Jim Bob. It took all three of them and over 20 years before I felt I’d gotten the hang of the whole parent thing. By then, of course, they were grown. God knows I made mistakes along the way. Still, none of my offspring have climbed a water tower to take pot shots at student nurses, so I guess I did OK. Or maybe I just got lucky.

Either way, I’m hoping the same formula holds true with raising these dumb birds. The learning arc is accelerated, of course, but so far, it all feels very familiar.

As with the kids, when the chickens first entered our home, they were cute, little bundles of downy sweetness, impossible not to love. The girl at Tractor Supply Company cautioned me to not “cuddle” them. I did anyway, even though they are – according to the literature – lethal balls of contagion just waiting for their chance to transmit the super-flu to every last human being on the planet.

Just like kids.

Contagious or not, they were cute. Super cute! I sat in the guest bathroom for hours on end just watching their goofy antics as they tumbled to and fro in their never ending search for a warm spot in the wood chips. They seemed genuinely grateful for each refilling of the food and water containers, chirping happily day and night.

But as with kids, that baby stage didn’t last long. Within a week the downy, yellow fluff had begun to fall off and was replaced by scruffy feathers best described as the bird version of zits.

Like teenagers, they seemed to have sprung up overnight. They were no longer sweet and cute. They were lanky, unattractive, demanding, moody. Any of this sounding familiar, parents of teens?

They began to squabble among themselves. There’s always an abundance of food and water in those plastic bins, but still they find reason to quarrel. And those sweet, little cheep-cheep noises they made at first? Those have been replaced with angry bawk-bawks that leave little doubt as to their meaning: “Daaaaad! Henrietta is molting on my side of the cage again!”

Fortunately, those “teen” days are almost over already. In another week they’ll be moving outside to the coop I recently built them, which is considerably nicer than the house I live in myself.

I feel ready to let them out into the wider world. Sure, I’ll still feed and water them, just like I did with my kids when they first moved away. But if one of them wants to move back into the house, well, that’s not happening.

Likewise, they can forget about me loaning them any money. Other than that, raising chickens is a lot like raising kids.

I got this.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

The best word in the world? Bacon, no question about it

Bacon.

Mmm … such a beautiful word. That word does things to me, things that words like “cute blonde” used to do, sort of. And unlike cute blondes, bacon never broke into my apartment to steal back two year’s worth of birthday presents.

But that’s a story for another time. Today, we’re talking about bacon, the best argument I can think of against vegetarianism.

It’s on my mind because my neighbor, Justin, gave me a couple pounds of it the other day. It came from pigs he raised over the course of last summer.

Since I didn’t give him any grief about putting in a small pen and populating it with two oinkers, I guess he felt he owed it to me. He didn’t, but he felt he did and I sure the heck am not going to tell him any different.

The bacon was, by far, the best thing I have ever eaten. It was cut thick, each slice a work of art, a rich tapestry of fat and lean laid out in symmetrical strips and vacuum sealed. I didn’t know how good it was going to taste when he dropped by the house to give it to me. This is probably a good thing. Had I known, I might have been tempted to kiss him and Justin doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would take kindly to that sort of thing.

Mrs. Taylor (formerly Lori Frankforter) expressed an interest in trying some of the bacon herself, and initially, I intended to share. Then I tasted it. After that I was like Gollum with the One Ring; nobody was going to touch my precious bacon.

I doled it out carefully over the next few days. Bacon and eggs for Monday’s breakfast, then BLTs for lunch the following two days.

Then it was gone. I was left with nothing but the memories.

I tried not to weep openly, but was only partly successful.

I don’t know why that bacon was so special, so much better than the stuff I can buy at the grocery. But it was.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact I had witnessed the growth of the pigs themselves, from cute, little Babe-like bundles of pink all the way through to their final exit from their pen, large, fat and resigned to their fate. Theirs was a short life, but a good one, I think.

Justin, who also keeps chickens, takes very good care of his critters. They’re comfortable, warm, well-fed. Hell, my own parents didn’t treat me as well as Justin treats his animals.

Or maybe it was knowing they were raised out in the fresh air (or as fresh as the air ever gets around a pig pen) that made the bacon seem so sweet. Maybe they just got better feed. When it comes to pigs, there’s a lot I don’t know.

But it seems to me there’s something about seeing to your own food, rather than just picking it up at a store, that just makes it, well, better. I’ve got to admit, Justin (and his gift of bacon) have inspired me.

I’m too much of a citified wimp to raise an animal myself with the intent of eating it. I grew up reading “Charlotte’s Web” and other stories of anthropomorphized barnyard residents who invariably displayed more humanity than their human masters.

So, nope. No pigs for me. But, as I mentioned last week, Mrs. T (fLF) has decided we’re going to raise chickens. We won’t be eating the birds, but we will be eating the eggs. That much my city boy psyche can handle.

I’ve heard fresh eggs are better than what you can buy at the store. It’ll be a while before I know for sure. Our chicks are still pretty little; we won’t be seeing eggs from them until summer’s end, at the soonest. But by next spring, they should by laying like crazy.

And should Justin decide to give me another package of bacon from this summer’s crop of oinkers to go with those eggs? Well, let’s just say I’ll be in hog heaven.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

Trying to understand why parents hate me

One nice thing about being married to a woman close to my own age: no living in-laws. Now, that may seem harsh, but I don’t mean it that way. I met Mrs. Taylor’s (formerly Lori Frankforter’s) father only once, shortly before he passed away. He seemed like a fascinating man; someone I would have enjoyed knowing.

Likewise, Mrs. T’s (fLF’s) mother – from all I’ve heard – was a nice enough woman. I would have liked them both.

But if past experience is any indication, they would not have liked me.

Ever since Diana, my first “real” girlfriend at age 16, girls’ parents have hated my stinking guts. I’m not sure why.

I’ve been told by people who should know that I have something of a blind spot when it comes to my own personal (and, apparently, abundant) flaws. Whether these decades of parental disdain are the direct result of one of these flaws is anybody’s guess, but it has always been a problem.

Not a problem for me, so much, but for the parents. One thing I have learned over the years; if a girl’s parents dislike you, odds are their daughter will wind up liking you even more. A psychiatrist could probably explain this dynamic, but I can’t.

Diana, for instance. I’m certain both her mother and father spent most of their free time trying to figure out ways to kill me and make it look like an accident.

He was a preacher, she a preacher’s wife. In their minds my death would have been nothing but divine intervention, God’s way of ridding the world of a menace on a par with Judas Iscariot or the antichrist.

The Good Reverend was convinced I had “designs” on his daughter. That’s exactly how he put it to me early on in our relationship: designs. I assured him this was not the case, but of course I was lying through my teeth and we both knew it.

I mean, I was 16, man! “Designs” weighed so heavily on my mind that I could barely figure out how to put my socks on in the morning. It wasn’t my fault. A billion years of evolution had made me that way! (By the way, evolution is an excuse you do not want to fall back on when defending your zealous libido to a girlfriend’s fundamentalist minister father. Found that one out the hard way.)

Point is, Diana’s parents hated me. I’m sure they were thrilled when she finally dumped me for a guy who owned his own car.

The parents of my next serious girlfriend, Corky, were atheists; cool, ultra-liberal hippy-types. They smoked pot. They read Rolling Stone and spent hours out on their back deck practicing tunes on their alto recorders and lutes. Corky’s dad’s hair was longer than mine, for cryin’ out loud!

They should have loved me, but didn’t. I’m guessing it was for the same reason Diana’s folks didn’t love me.

To be fair, I understood this attitude better years later, shortly after my own daughter hit her teens. As a parent, I spent many a late night waiting on the front porch, wishing I owned a shotgun.

But that all changed once Aubreii married. I liked her husband a lot and my days of boyfriend-hating and shotgun-wishing were over.

Not so with my first set of in-laws. They hated me even after I walked their daughter down the aisle. They did their best to hide it, but I could tell.

There have been a few wives and many girlfriends since then (which, I suppose, helps explain why parents hate me). I’ll be the first to admit I’ve had a tough time with commitment. I mean, most guys develop at least a little emotional maturity before they’re old enough to qualify for AARP membership.

What can I say. I’m a late bloomer. Or, possibly, just kind of stupid. Either way, I seem to be getting the hang of this whole relationship thing. Finally, and at long last.

Mrs. T (fLF) seems pretty happy with my performance so far, at any rate.

So who knows? Maybe it would be a good thing after all if my in-laws were still with us. Maybe I’ve finally become someone a parent could like.

Maybe.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

I’m not ready for my close-up and probably won’t be any time soon

Like a lot of folks, I’m an egomaniac with deep-seated security issues. Some days, I think I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread; not just any sliced bread, but that good stuff from Arnie’s Bakery that goes for over three bucks a loaf. Other days, I feel like something that should probably be scraped from the sole of a dairy farmer’s boot.

Since going into semi-forced retirement, my appearance reflects this fact. I’ve found that when you’re not going into an office regularly, have no meetings, and your wife is away at work all day, well, personal grooming becomes optional, rather than mandatory.

Where once I shaved daily, it’s now a twice a week affair, maybe three times if I’m expecting a visit from the Pope or Queen Elizabeth. At least one day each week, I don’t bother to shower; I just roll out of bed, dress and slap on an old fishing cap that Mrs. Taylor (formerly Lori Frankforter) hates a lot.

But then, a couple times a week I pull the full Monty; I shower, shave, dye some of the grey out of my beard, brush with the electric toothbrush that does a good job but takes forever, floss, trim the errant hairs attempting to escape my ears, put “product” in my hair and dress in clothes that have had the wrinkles taken out of them with an honest-to-gawd iron.

I do this so Mrs. T (fLF) will have something to remember me by other than the fishing cap. Just in case she meets an amorous tennis pro who’s into ladies of a “certain age.”

It’s not an ideal situation, but one that seems to work for me.

With one exception.

That’s when I go out in public. To the grocery, the mall, the movies.

I’m not famous, but my ugly mug is in the newspaper every week and has been for years. Regular readers of this column (Hi Norm and Flo!) recognize me when I’m out and about. Often, they want to tell me why they liked a particular column, one I may have written years ago and have now completely forgotten. Other times, they want to check the accuracy of something I wrote. I always lie and assure them everything here is 100 percent true.

I don’t mind being approached in the frozen foods aisle or in the ticket line at the theater. In fact, I like it a lot. In what other job do strangers stop you on the street to tell you how much they enjoy your work? I used to be an elementary school janitor and lemme tell ya, nobody ever came up to me in the lunch room to let me know what a wonderful  job I’d done cleaning the toilets.

So, yeah, it’s great.

The only downside? It always seems to happen on a fishing cap day, when I look like Quasimodo’s stunt double and smell like the floor of a chicken coop. When I’m wearing sweats and sneakers with holes in the toes. When my ear hair is long enough to hang Christmas ornaments from.

It never fails. Days when I leave the house smelling of Old Spice, my hair neat and combed, my teeth fully brushed – basically, an exact duplicate of Kevin Costner in his prime – well, on those days … nothin’. I could hang a sign around my neck saying, “Please ask me about my ‘Reality Check’ column,” and I’d get nothing but blank stares.

But put me in torn Bermuda shorts and a pair of dollar store flip-flops? All of a sudden I’m Justin Bieber in a room full of 13-year-old girls. Everyone knows me.

There are those who would say this is Karma’s way of lessening my innate egomaniacal tendencies and increasing my deep-seated security issues. But I’ve never trusted Karma. It never seems to strike down the folks who need it most, while the good guys keep dropping like flies.

Anyway, this is all just my way of letting the nice lady (and regular reader) I recently met at the hardware store know; I don’t always look like that.

And please, please don’t post that selfie you took of us by the power washers on Facebook.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 745-9530

The mega-mall is no place for a cave man

Went to the mall the other day. Not just any mall; a super-mall in Detroit.

I was visiting my daughter, her Significant Other, and their five kids. Five kids is a lot, particularly when they run the gamut from sulky teenager to violently yodeling toddler. I love them all more than life itself, but not so much that I can stand to be cooped up in a house with the lot of them for more than a few hours at a time.

Which is why I was at the mall. I had already grabbed breakfast at my favorite Greek joint (Zorba’s), written my column for that week at my favorite post-hippie-nouveau-chic coffee house (Java Hut), and window shopped at a place called Junkyard Guitars (aptly named).

For me, these days, that’s a full day. But it wasn’t even 3:30. I had no intention of returning to my daughter’s home until it was a bit closer to the younger contingent’s respective bedtimes.

My daughter, who understands all too clearly the desire to occasionally escape the company of juveniles, suggested I try the mall.

Though I lived in Detroit for years, it was a mall I’d never visited before. This is not surprising; I avoid shopping whenever possible. Malls haven’t held much attraction for me since the early ‘80s, when I used to try to meet girls there.

But it was either the mall or entertaining 2-year-old Ari (his name, I believe, means “offspring of the Tasmanian Devil”) while my daughter nursed the baby. I chose the mall. It wasn’t a tough call.

Aubreii described it as “kind of upscale.” I don’t know when she inherited her millions, but “kind of upscale” doesn’t begin to scratch the surface. This place had a few stores I’d heard of, but have never been to. Nordstrom. Sak’s Fifth Avenue. Leon’s Big Money Pit.

OK, I made that last one up, but you get the idea. The kind of mega-shops that feature distressed T-shirts “on sale” for $400. There was a jewelry store there, a few of them, in fact.

Working up my courage, I casually strolled into one, thinking I might pick up a cute little necklace or something for Mrs. Taylor (formerly Lori Frankforter). I was looking to drop as much as fifty bucks.

I knew I was in trouble when not one, but three sales clerks – wearing suits that cost more than my car – descended on me. One offered me a glass of Riesling. She assured me it was a good year. I told her it would be a pleasure to drink wine that didn’t come out of a box for a change.

After that, two of the clerks suddenly remembered they had other business to attend to. The one still stuck with me did not seem thrilled with the prospect, but was determined to make the best of it.

A professional.

“What can I show you?” is what she said. What she meant was, “Something from our ‘found in the parking lot’ collection, perhaps?”

I told her I needed some earrings for my wife. How expensive can a pair of earrings be, right? So I thought.

The clerk showed me a few different “moderately priced” sets. Apparently “moderately” has a different meaning in this mall than in the real world. Oh, I could have bought them. But it would have meant first donning a ski mask and knocking over a few rural banks.

I’m not sure my Catholic upbringing would allow that. So I left without the earrings, and without my wine. For some reason, it never quite made it out to me.

Riding the skywalk conveyor (when you shop here, you don’t have to walk, baby!) from the north side of the mall to the south, I took my first close look at the other shoppers. Everyone, every single one of them, man, woman and child, was prettier than me. And better dressed.

I felt like a Neanderthal shambling into an encampment of homo sapiens. I figured it was only a matter of time before security rolled up on a Segway and helped me decide to vacate the premises, so instead I did it on my own.

On the ride back to Aubreii’s I stopped at a Trader Joe’s and bought a couple bottles of Three Buck Chuck. I’m not sure if it was a good year, unless last week was a good year, but for three bucks, it’s OK wine.

Went well enough with the barbecue my daughter put together that evening. Served on paper plates left over from somebody’s birthday party.

It was interesting to peek into the glitterati lives of the “other half,” but all-in-all, I’m pretty happy right where I am. Besides, being so pretty all-day-every-day would take more effort than I’m willing to exert.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414