I have a daughter and I forgot her birthday.

I have a daughter and I forgot her birthday.  I remember her first one, couldn't forget that.  She came so quickly, I hardly had time to get settled for what I thought would be a long haul and she was there. So insistent, so present, so there.  When we took her home I spent the first night with her so her mother could sleep. On the family room floor next to her, listening to her soft rapid breathing, every couple hours she'd wake and cry and I'd take her to her mother to nurse.  Then back on the floor. With me.  Just me and my only daughter.  And I forgot her birthday.

I remember her growing up, she would get her words mixed up, saying "callipeter" and "beltseat". She had an electric smile that lit up the room, with gleaming eyes under a pageboy haircut.  Like me she was small with dark hair over fair skin - a bundle of energy and joy.  She would go out to the swing set and sing her favorite song from The Little Mermaid at the top of her lungs.  Of course she was the Mermaid. I would listen to my daughter sing and marvel that she was mine.  And I forgot her birthday.

She had a tough streak:  she had to because she had a big, no BIG brother three years older who went where he would, including into her her room, her things, her space.  We had a rule that Amelia could hit Sam but Sam couldn't hit her.  A rule to his credit he honored.  And Amelia needed all the help she could get simply to keep the big lug from straying to deeply into her precious things, we would hear her shouts of rage and whack whack whacks as he nonchalantly proceeded, almost oblivious to her.  I loved her intensity and prayed that she would keep it her whole life.  I have a daughter and I forgot her birthday.

She and Sam grew to be friends.  We would go to our beach house in Michigan for two  weeks every year and their mother would fret and plan for ways to keep them occupied on the eight hour drive, cleverly devising games and gifts and other fun.  But in the end they entertained each other, communicating in the way that brothers and sisters always do.  I will always remember my son teaching his sis' some important details of of life:  "Hey Ameeeeelia (he always stretched the e, dunno why) do  you know what the "S" word is?"....."no...what?"..."Shut up".  And a few minutes later: "Hey Ameeeeelia, do you know what the F word is?"....."no...what?" ...."Fart".  I almost drove off the road, laughing so hard at my son and my daughter.  And I forgot her birthday.

Amelia was a risk taker in a way that I or Sam or her mother never were.  One day I was working in my office on the third floor in our house which stood on the slope of the hill.  In front of it, further down the slope was a  young white pine tree, four stories high, its top reaching my third floor window.  That windy spring day I was busily beavering away at something and I heard her voice "Hey Dad! Look Here!" It was Amelia, clinging to the highest part of the trunk in the swaying breeze. The last time I left what had been our house I looked up the white pine and there were seats and jump ropes and other things that she had put up there for her and her friends. And I forgot her birthday.

I remember one time I was working outside on something and she was riding her bike. She had just learned - Sam had taught her - he loved her even has he vexed her mightily.  She was driving around the house on the garden paths in her bare feet.  By the neighbor's standards we were "bad parents" because we let our children "run wild". Not really - but we gave them the freedom that our parents ha given us and were willing to take the risks that our choice presented.  Including the risk of a barefoot young girl riding too close to the extra slate roof tiles and slicing her foot open.  She cried so hard that she couldn't breathe - her intensity again - I almost cried with her but soon she calmed down and we dressed the wound and went up the family room where she got a popsicle and I a margarita and we watched Sponge Bob Squarepants together.  Not my favorite but at the time one of my daughter's.  And I forgot her birthday.

As time passed. my situation became more troubled and our marriage more desperate, I didn't spend as much time with Amelia.  I was travelling overseas often and obsessed with making money that I needed to maintain our lifestyle.  She didn't punish me for my lack of attention, continuing to treat me much as she always had.  She was such a beautiful girl and I was so grateful for her.  And I forgot her birthday.

Then there was the day that we told the kids that I was moving out.  That our marriage was at its end and that there was no chance of reconciliation  My wife began the tale of woe and I finished, breaking into tears towards the end.  My son and daughter jumped up and embraced me, the three of us crying together, Amelia's hot tears on my neck.  And I forgot her birthday.

I realized that my daughter was no longer a girl some time later.  I had a partner who had a huge, wonderful yacht and he graciously invited Amelia to have her fifteenth birthday party on it.  She brought seven or eight friends and I was amazed how she had become a beautiful young woman.  While Sam spent most of the time driving the boat (those of you that know him know what I'm talking about) I spent most of my time watching her.  Her poise and grace.  How she carried herself, how she was so very beautiful.  My daughter.  And I forgot her birthday.

I was with her five short days before she turned nineteen two days ago but that fact never once registered in my mind.  You see after a period of frustration, things are going well for me again - I have a new business and was dating a woman for the first time since my marriage failed. In many respects was in as good a shape as I had been for a decade.  I was so happy - and to be be with both my kids at Lake of the Ozarks at my friend Debra's was a double treat.  I was so full of myself that despite being with my daughter I forgot her birthday.  I know I'm selfish, I know I'm weak but I didn't realize that I was so selfish and weak that I would forget her.  But I did.  She of course forgave me but that did not and can not change the fact that I have a daughter and I forgot her birthday.

The only thing I can say, Amelia is that I'm sorry and that I love you and that I am so very proud that I have a daughter and that she is you.

For I have a daughter and I forgot her birthday

Ode to my larger brother

Oh larger brother!
Monstrous, looming force from God,
with capacious jaw and large scale nod.
You envelop us in your great embrace,
as we disappear 'neath your solemn face.

Oh larger brother!
Giant of our time!
You expand, back, front, side to side.
Waxing ever greater, ever wide.

Oh larger brother!
Beast of great burden - save when it hurts your back,
hauling kegs and cases home - whatever you lack.
Tap them, pop them,
Drink them, quaff them.

Oh larger brother!
Once you sheltered in my shadow,
now in yours I cower below.
You blot out the sun,
spreading shade from which no one can run.

Oh larger brother!
With booming voice and balding pate.
Friends ask "Is that your big brother?" and I say "yay".
May you always be greater, larger, more.
May I always be the "little" bro that you adore.

Oh larger brother!
On your fifty second year of birth.
At fifty four I marvel at your girth.
Thank you brother, for being so large.
I couldn't have bettered it had I been in charge

My kids ain't no Yalies

My Grandfather Elmer Elton Savage was born to sharecroppers in the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. He attended school right over the border in Elgin, Kansas - he and his brothers would avoid walking two extra miles by taking a rope swing Tarzan style over the Caney River. He graduated the sixth grade before beginning his career as a "roustabout" on oil rigs. Difficult, dirty, dangerous work and my Grandad started when he was 13, ending his career some 50 years later as Regional Production Superintendent in the Permian Basin. In a real sense he was a key man in the industry that makes our cars go. So you can understand why when one of his Grandsons (moi) matriculated University he would refer to me as a "Yalie" (particularly when I would say "who? Moi?") even though I never got near Yale, attending Tulsa and Chicago (now my father nearly became a Yalie which may have influenced Grandad's rhetoric - sort of a retrospective warning). When I said or did something particularly egregious (which you'll be shocked to know actually happened) he would call me a "candyass Yalie" - although always with a mischievous grin.

But I think if Grandad had witnessed the utterly unhinged howling and shrieking on display at Yale this last week he would have apologized for associating me with any of them.  Because if I had displayed that type of childish - no toddlerish - behavior in front of him he would have kicked my ass all the way to El Paso.

And so I must take some modest credit (jointly with their mother, Diane) for saving my children from the Yalie fate.  You see I'm a libertarian conservative and by and large I taught my kids to interpret the world that way.  So when they toddled off to school and now University (not Yale, thank God and Man) they had a proto-world view that their much more left wing teachers and professors constantly challenged.  They never had the luxury of having their every bias and whim validated for them in every forum they attended.  And while I don't think they were ever taught by avowed Marxist Leninists or Radical Islamists, I believe they were exposed to some of the widest range of worldviews available in America today. Which will serve them in good stead as they navigate life's slings and arrows (Is that a mixed metaphor?  How can you navigate slings?  Or arrows?  Oh well).

The problem with leftish thinking in America today is not so much that the left critique of our society is all wrong but that because of the nature of our educational system and news media it's the only meta narrative that you tend to hear in public (outside of churches and Fox News, that is) and going through childhood without ever having your preconceived notions challenged makes for very weak and emotional thinkers. I have great, guilty fun debating friends who have been marinated their whole life in the standard vaguely leftish received wisdom.  I flummox them, I rabbit punch them, I pull the Ali "I am the greatest rope a dope" on them.  It is so much fun but quite illegitimate.  Because I'm no smarter than them. It's just that I've  spent most of my life sparring with teachers, professors and Phd candidates and doing lots of two and three on me's with friends.  It makes you tough and teaches you your opponents' weaknesses and most importantly:  your own.

And that's what I did for my kids - not because I thought of it but because it's who I am - I'm stupid lucky that way.  Look, I don't know where my kids are going to end up on the political spectrum but I know they won't ever behave like the panicked, shrieking, cursing, spitting leftists at Yale.  They're too tough for that.

So Grandad, I guarantee that your Great Grandkids will never, ever be "Candyass" anythings.

The trials and tribulations of arboreal diversity

There's some early fall color from Red Maples on our street. Of course "Fall" is more a state of mind than a fact of life this time of year on Houston. In fact these maples celebrate fall in the same way that folks from Greece or China celebrate their ethnic festivals. They pick out a time in October when the trees back in the old country are celebrating and go all red themselves. The orange, grapefruit and lemon trees do the same thing around Christmas, turning their fruit bright citrusy  colors that celebrate the season just kust like dear old grandad did. The tropical palm trees (who are also botanical immigrants, more and more coming every day) disapprove of all this polyseasonistic behavior. They hold that "there is no Season but Hot Season and the Date Palm is its Prophet". Occasionally this leads to violence where Maples and Oaks have their tops lopped off. Which ticks off the native Texan Live Oak trees who get all up into the foreign trees' grilles while the Arizona and California Ash trees plead "dudes! Can't we all just get along". Such are the trials and tribulations of arboreal diversity.

Zombie Hedge Apples from Outer Space

I was undertaking my mandatory  Thanksgiving postprandial peregrination when I espied a peculiar protuberance from fallen hedge apples in an Austin field. Some of the hedge apples had taken a rust colored hue on one side. At first I though that said rust was simply rot from the dying hedge apple's core but when I drew nearer it became apparent that whatever was brown was also alive. Well not so much alive as not dead.

Before that day I would have characterized things in this world as either "living" or "dead" what the Grammar Dominatrix's (trixi? trixians?) at my high school called a "Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive" or MECE list. No longer. For the "rust" was actually the furious activity of thousands of alien zombies preparing to decamp their Death...Apples and put Central Texas to the sword or ray gun or whatever. 

Fortunately for the Austinite computer geeks resplendent in their matching hipster habits, the Rust Colored Cohort's grasp of interstellar scale was squat.  The entire million zombie army carried on 20 or so Death Apples weighed no more than a couple table spoons of malt o meal. And looked similar. My brother's dog was with me and he wiped - actually licked - out an entire Death Apple's landing cohort. And for reasons understood only by other alien zombie soldiers, an army that crossed interstellar space at faster than the speed of light decided that they would conquer earth on foot. Which means they will get to my brother's house sometime in early 2017. If the dog doesn't lick them first.