 
" _Don't Worry, It'll Grow Back"_

"Don't Worry, It'll Grow Back"

by

Wendell Whitney Thorne

This is a work of non-fiction. All people, places and events depicted herein occurred nearly exactly as they are written. The timing of some events may have been changed in order to provide continuity, however any factual errors due to faulty memory are entirely the responsibility of the author, and he is sorry. The portion of "The Greatest Generation" dealing with my parents' meeting and courtship is an elaboration from facts known to me, and my father's assault of Omaha Beach is pieced together from historical documents, interviews with D-Day survivors and other sources.

Also By Wendell Whitney Thorne:

____________

An Elephant In The Living Room – Is It Too Late To 'Kill All The Lawyers'?"

"Don't Worry, It'll Grow Back"

©2010 Wendell WhitneyThorne All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-0-578-07164-0

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Cover Artwork and Layout: Alex Rodriguez (Honest to God) www.cardtoonland.com

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to extend his heartfelt gratitude to the clients who've made His Place Barber & Grooming Shop (and Don's Barbershop before it) a great place to work, to share ideas, and to just be gentlemen; you make it easy to come in every day. Thanks also to my children, Alexa, Caroline, Lennon, and Cooper, who have given my life particular purpose; I'm grateful for their mother as well. Thanks also go to my editor, Steve Peake, who's able to render a decent pan gravy from my charred remains. I wish to express my deep gratitude to Mr. William "David" Bass, Phil Hicks, Lee Strumski, Don & Terry Cowfer, Alex Rodriguez for his great cover, the guys from Luray, all the professionals who've been a part of this little barbershop over the years, the men and women of The Greatest Generation, the people mentioned in this book that have given a grand color to my life, and Jessica, my Jessica.

For My Father,

Charles Franklin Thorne, Jr.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

The Greatest Generation 13

Loo-Ray 33

If The Glove Doesn't Fit

You Have To Quit 55

The Ghost Grins 83

Rock Fever 97

Two Jerks 121

"Nice To Mole You" 145

Is She Worth Saving? 163

Don't Worry, It'll Grow Back 181

Introduction

In our community, I'm known as "Bradenton's Favorite Barber." And, by "in our community" I mean: "in my mind." I like to think of myself as a master barber with myriad clients who wait hours for me to cut their hair. In truth, I am the most fortunate man I know.

In my humble estimation, I have about 400 regular clients who've been duped into thinking I know what I'm doing with clippers and shears, who enjoy my never-ending stories and "in your face" demeanor, and who pay me every couple of weeks for the enjoyment of fifteen minutes of cigar breath and my pithy analysis of The State of The World.

But I am definitely comfortable here. All my life I just knew there was a place for me. The juxtaposition of my boisterous personality and a healthy respect for tradition has found a home in the barbershop.

There was a time in American history when the local barbershop was something more than a place to get a trim and a close shave. Gentlemen—from the mayor to the tobacco farmer—drifted leisurely in and out of the shop on an almost-daily basis, greeting one another and staying in touch. Like the British publick houses (the "pubs"), the American barbershop—in communities like Hollowell, Maine and Lenoir, North Carolina and Dyersville, Iowa—was the best place to get up to speed on the local goings-on.

Hard-working men living uncomplicated lives possessed the uncanny ability to chisel complex issues down to their least common denominator. American life was lived upon a foundation of solid truths, which were never questioned. And although the barbershop was a marketplace of ideas and critical analysis, such engagement was entered into by all participants under an unspoken agreement to do so within the framework of a common value system. This is not to say that discomforting or even far-fetched topics were not broached—reasoned progress demanded it. But imagination was always tempered by primeval understandings that had been silently passed from generation to generation.

These storefront shops were rich with heart-of-pine flooring, mahogany wainscoting and cabinetry, decorative pendant lighting, and large, well-polished mirrors. Beneath each mirror was a smooth porcelain pedestal sink before a solidly-built barber chair with polished chrome and deep forest-green or burgundy leather. Patrons were met with the aroma of oak smoldering in a pot-belly stove, mixed with masculine fragrances like Clubman aftershave, Wildroot hair cream and ten-cent cigars. An array of fedoras and Stetsons adorned the brass coat rack.

In one corner, a couple of guys played checkers while a businessman in a three-piece suit waited his turn with the morning paper. In one reclined barber chair, a customer swathed in a red-striped haircloth had his face wrapped in a steaming white linen towel while at another, a barber dressed in white coat and bow tie blended the perfect taper, shears over comb.

The radio played Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey and, later in the afternoon, the Cubs game live from Wrigley Field. Men forecast the weather and spoke of distant places with funny names like Okinawa and Ardennes, but also of Main Street and the heretically-proposed traffic signal—and the special tax assessment to pay for it. Livestock and real estate were transferred with a handshake. Newborn babies were communally celebrated and old friends were laid to rest with respect.

Like water through the wheel at the gristmill, a community's life passed through the barbershop.

In the year 2010 I am caretaker of such a shop, the 2010 version anyway. I do not say "owner" or even "operator" because the shop has a life of its own that was here long before I arrived and will thrive long after I'm gone. Hopefully. The differences between old and new are typical and expected: technological advances in the world and unfathomable challenges within the family. Air conditioning, electric clippers and MP3s. On the coat rack, the fedoras are gone, replaced by baseball caps—John Deere, Dale Earnhardt, The Tampa Bay Rays. Conversation is interrupted by an orchestra of ring tones. And women customers. A few, anyway.

Death no longer waits for the elderly; motorcycle accidents, drug overdoses and cancer swipe the young from us. A make-believe world visually emanating from clusters of ever-larger electronic flat-screens exploits our emotions and distracts our attention from the real, the substantial, the true. A cacophony of talk—not music—vomits from the radio. Mike Gallagher, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Laura Ingraham—all of whom practice somewhat right of center, madly in love with the sound of their own voices—they talk. And talk. And talk. And the people, God love 'em, they listen, convinced that these guys and gals are something more than entertainers; bards or pundits or poets, even.

Some things, however, have not changed. The issues facing mankind may be different, more complex, but the conversation flowing from the mouth of the ideologue and the naïve and sage continues towards its ultimate goal: Simplify.

One anomaly I can't explain is the matter of time. Time—the keeping of it, the knowledge of it—has not changed since, well, it's beginning. A minute is still a minute, an hour an hour. What has changed is how we use time. Technology has given us countless toys and inventions to "save time," yet we seem to have less and less free time at our disposal. Computers calculate and bind us one to another across the globe. We have an insatiable and impatient hunger to know.

In the several years I have been in my position, it has occurred to me that there are stories here. Stories from the mouths of patrons. Stories from the mouths of barbers. And stories long ago relegated to a worm hole in my head just waiting for somebody to recite the magic word that releases them from my brain. They are true stories that define, for me, the essence of life; or, perhaps better stated, the essence of our humanity.

It is past time for us as a human society to remind ourselves of that humanity. I believe there are important ingredients missing in the day-to-day existence of life, preventing us from receiving all that such life has to offer. Like a pinch of nutmeg added to some of the Italian dishes we prepare, there are sprinkles and dashes we omit from our daily "recipes" that could make all the difference. Often, those missing ingredients are found at the barbershop.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, regardless of what I tell my children. I only know what I know and what I glean everyday from a cadre of personalities as distinct as their hair. They are the catalyst for my thought process and creativity; I owe them a lot. Every day, my clients give me the opportunity to practice my craft. More importantly, they give me the chance to make a difference in their lives. Many have become my friends.

This is a book of stories inspired by them. It is a portrait of successes and failures, of poor judgment and lucky breaks. It is written to remind you—and me—to take this complex thing called life and extract from it the act of living.

It also makes an excellent coaster.

The Greatest Generation

At the risk of sounding like Paul Harvey, I believe "they don't make 'em like they used to." Some things, anyway. The barbershop I now own and operate will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in 2010. When I purchased it in November of 2002, I felt as though I was being entrusted with a piece of history, an heirloom of sorts. I take that responsibility very seriously. My barber chairs are over seventy years old, and they'll be here in another seventy. I like that. I drive a Mercedes-Benz automobile—25 years old. Why? Because they don't make 'em like they used to. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I remember vividly the moment I knew I was ordained to be the next keeper of this icon. I had been working in a full-service total family barbershop for a couple of years, years in which I'd begun to get a grasp on my hair technique and, more importantly, the importance of building relationships with my customers and colleagues. After these two years or so, I thought it was time for me to "move on" to the next level. Although I had developed my skills in a variety of hair care for men, women and children, I had a passion for men's grooming.

"No, this shop's not for sale," said Bob, the owner of Village Barbershop in West Bradenton. I'd gone by there because there was a "For Sale" sign in the window of the adjacent hair salon, and I thought maybe the two were going as a unit.

"But," he continued as he opened a drawer at one of the stations, "If you're looking for a barbershop, this one's for sale." He handed me a newspaper ad he'd cut out of the local fish wrapper. I looked at the paper and copied down the information.

When I got home, I called the number. A woman answered.

"It's my husband's shop and he's retiring," she told me. She was not at liberty to divulge the price or any other vital information, like the monthly rent, but said her husband would call me later.

I waited.

That afternoon the phone rang. An older man's voice told me that he'd arranged with the landlord to allow the new owner to keep the same rent, which he told me was 'very reasonable' but still wouldn't say how much, nor would he tell me his asking price for the business.

"Why don't you just meet me out at the shop tomorrow night to take a look at it for yourself and then we'll talk." His tone was neutral. I agreed.

The next evening, I saw the shop up close for the first time. I realized I'd driven past it on occasion, but it wasn't in an area that I frequented. I'd never given it more than a passing glance. Situated in a strip mall with five other businesses, the shop was indistinctive though not unappealing.

Walking through the front door, I was greeted by a tall, distinguished-looking man about eighty years old, with soft blue eyes, a friendly smile, and a headful of wavy silvery-white hair. He extended his hand.

"I'm Don Cowfer," he began, "and this is my wife, Terry." She was obviously somewhat younger than her husband, with beautifully-set blonde hair and porcelain skin. Like the older man, she smiled broadly. With my hand still in Don's grasp, I allowed my eyes to take a quick glance of the shop, and I knew.

He gave me the nickel tour as we exchanged niceties. The backbar and its built-in picture-window mirrors was all 1960s, pressed wood and Formica. It had built-in overhead lighting with old shampoo sinks integrated into the entire structure. I was disappointed to see that his three chairs were not barber chairs but salon chairs. I'd made a commitment to myself when I began barbering to offer full-service face shaving to my customers, a lost art that I felt was integral to men's grooming. The lack of reclining chairs was a drawback, but I'd purchased a budget model barber chair that reclined and was using it in the other shop already.

The floor was old linoleum tiling and the walls were aging. Cheap paneling covered some of them. One wall was filled with 4x6 black and white photographs of little boys getting their haircut. Don noticed me looking. "I always took photos of their first haircuts," he smiled, pointing to the pictures.

The tiny back room was cluttered and needed cleaning. The waiting chairs were old but usable, and the bathroom worked. The shop needed a lift here and a tuck there, but it had good bones. Don showed me his books and made his optimistic case for future success of the shop under my guidance. All of that was relatively unnecessary. I'd done something I don't usually do: I'd allowed my gut feeling to just about make the deal. Still, I had some fear.

"I like this idea," I told Don, "but I'm not sure I'm ready for this—"

"Yes you are," he leveled his eyes at me. "You're ready."

And at that moment, I knew. We ironed out the particulars and Don offered to take back the financing and it was just easy.

Don Cowfer, I'd learn later, won two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star in the Battle of The Bulge, the six-week long German offensive fought during the deep winter of 1944-45 in which 80,987 American soldiers died (how many in Iraq, in nine years?). Don is a gentleman in every way. Business-like in business matters, he told me that there were many times when a customer was having troubles or was just depressed, and he would stop cutting hair and just have a word of prayer with that person. I liked that.

Don and his history brought to mind another soldier, and I marveled at how two men from the same generation could end up so differently.

Charles Franklin Thorne, Jr. was 17 years old with a ninth grade education, no discernable manners, soft brown eyes and a toothy, salesman's smile. He nearly dropped his coffee mug when Carolyn Whitney, then 14, walked into the Hilltop Grill in Augusta, Maine with her older cousin, Hazel, in October of 1940. Hazel—being older and, theoretically, wiser—established herself as Caroline's protector, her road block. She bristled at Charlie's reaction to her younger cousin—bright blonde hair, clear skin, an hourglass-shaped early-onset figure—and made strong attempts to intercept Charlie's advances, to no avail. Deciding that Charlie looked an awful lot like Benny Goodman, Carolyn was also smitten. When she weighed the dozen years held captive by her aging grandparents (and being harbored in a virtual closet by her well-meaning cousin) against freedom in the arms of anyone, there was no contest. But there was something else about this guy, this Charlie Thorne. He was warm, with a good sense of humor. She didn't know if he had plans or dreams, and she didn't care.

"He looked at my eyes," she said to Hazel on the walk home from the diner.

"What?" She said it as if the "h" came first.

"He didn't stare at these," she said, waggling her index finger from one ample breast to the other. "He looked me in the eye." Carolyn couldn't remember a boy who'd done that before.

To his credit, Charlie allowed the girl to grow up a bit and, in March of 1942, he proposed with a ring bearing the tiniest of diamonds. They should have been married within the year.

But Charlie got drafted.

He kissed his fiancé, promised her he'd be back, and boarded a bus for Texas.

After basic training, Private First Class Charles F. Thorne, Jr. was assigned to the First Infantry Division, the "Fighting First," or the "Big Red One," so-called because of the red uniform patch with the large number "1" in the middle. 16th Regiment. 3rd Battalion. Lima Company. His commanding officer was Captain Dan C. Albergetti, of Taunton, Massachusetts, and Charlie didn't like him, not one bit. In fact, he'd boasted—though not to the man himself—how he would someday fatten the lip of the 'loud-mouthed guinea.' Charlie didn't really like the Army, either, if he told the truth, but to say so aloud might be construed as treason. So he kept his mouth shut, which, as anyone who had ever known PFC Thorne could tell you, was no small feat.

When Captain Albergetti, the 'friggin' wop,' ordered him to exit the landing craft first, alongside him, on the sixth of June, 1944, 'to save the frogs' worthless asses,' Charlie only glared at him. His expression was anger. In fact, he was scared to death.

When the ramp was lowered from the amphib—stuck in a sandbar 200 yards from the damn beach—Armellino, along with Charlie and two others, slid down the ramp and into the cold English Channel as automatic rifle fire from German strongholds high above the beach wizzed all around them. Under the weight of his gear and his M1 Garand wrapped in plastic, the hydrophobic and sea-sickened Charlie's Mae West was insufficient to keep his head above water. In panic, he kicked and pushed against the legs of his fellow soldiers, but could not gain the surface. Great, he thought, the Krauts won't get me, but I'll drown!

Right before he gave up the fight, one in his company behind him off the launch, maybe DuFresne, pulled him up by his knapsack. He spit and coughed and found his feet on the sandbar while the bullets kept whizzing and whining past his head like a swarm of bees on speed.

Insanely making way for the beach against such fire, Charlie quickly scanned for a sign of his Captain and the two others in his squad. When he couldn't find them, he thought: How long was I under the water? It would be two full days before Charlie learned that the trio had been swiftly cut down by rifle fire before their feet had even left the ramp. He felt only a twinge of remorse for his prior feelings about the Captain, but was moved to private tears at the news of the other two, friends he'd made in boot camp even though they were probably Jews: Virgil and Isaac, from New York.

The war ended and PFC Thorne came home to marry his sweetheart. In her haste to extricate herself from her family, Carolyn Whitney failed to observe that the wonderful fire she'd seen that day at the Hilltop six years earlier had vanished from her new husband's eyes, stolen by an unseen intruder and left to die on a cold beach in France.

Charlie Thorne sired four children, and I am his third. He never spoke to me or my siblings about whatever happened "over there," so as I grew up and matured, I had no reason to believe it was nothing more than a smidgeon of his long-ago past, a wide place in the road of life.

I'm pretty sure I'm quite wrong about that now.

Because the older I get, the more I can see how the experiences of my younger years have real impact on how I live my life now; the decisions I make, the manner in which I triage difficulties and problems are funneled through the lessons from those years.

Which is to say that I've come to an understanding of the reasons for the distance between my father and me as I grew up. Something—lots of somethings, I suppose—happened over there. The horror of battle and its brutal devaluation of life, all life, sucked some primordial and existential fiber from my father, and the millions of other fathers, and, to my way of thinking, was forever lost.

Dad and I had our first real conversation—ever—in my apartment in Knoxville while I was in law school. He was seventy-five years old. We both spoke and listened. It was cathartic and sad at the same time. He made an admission to me that came as close to being selfless as was possible for him.

"I should have been around more when you were growing up," he told me in a somber and weary voice. Seated across from me on the sofa, his posture conveyed defeat. Dad worked a lot when I was young, ostensibly to make damn sure that his four kids were provided for. However, being programmed a lot like him, I know his reasons for staying away so much weren't all altruistic; he was escaping.

He continued. "I know that I felt like I needed to make sure you and your brother and sisters had what you needed, but I now know that you needed something else. You needed me. You needed me to be emotionally there for you." This was my father talking, the one who never used the word "emotionally" before, at least in my presence. "If you ever have a family, don't make the same mistake I did. Be there for your children." I'd heard about fatherly advice, but I couldn't remember receiving any. It was refreshing and, as I said, cathartic.

After he spoke these words, I looked deeply into his eyes, and that's when I saw it.

I saw that it wasn't me he felt badly about, it was him! He was saddened because of all that he'd missed out on as we grew. Because the raising of children, while sacrificial and fraught with setbacks and heartache, is, to me, the most joy-filled and satisfying experience in the human journey. Dad came to that realization too late, but I'm glad I took his advice.

But I had seen those eyes once before.

I was playing baseball, Babe Ruth league and, although I'd been a good pitcher in Little League, the mound was a lot further away now and I was just starting out in Babe Ruth so I wasn't pitching yet. But I could run, and so they put me in left field. Second string.

My friend Brian Geroux was up to bat for the other team, and I'd been watching him all game from the bench, pounding deep drives over the head of the center-fielder. Two or three times in this game already. When I finally made it into the game, I was ready.

When Brian began his swing, I turned and ran like the wind towards deep center. Sure enough, Brian smacked it out there. I tracked the fly ball over my shoulder as I ran and, miraculously, as I extended my glove the ball found it. It truly was a great catch.

At the end of the inning, I ran in to the bench, where Dad was just arriving to pick me up. When he got to the dugout area, fifteen people mobbed him.

"Oh my God, you missed it! Your son just made the most amazing catch I've ever seen," was what they were saying. I looked at Dad. Those eyes. Yep. He'd missed it and, yep, he felt like crap. For him.

Well, that's what I saw that day in my apartment in Knoxville. He'd missed it. All of it. And he was sad.

What I took from that is a large part of why I gave up practicing law in favor of barbering. Truth be told, I enjoyed practicing law. I knew it wouldn't be long before I started making real good money again, and I liked having the knowledge to help people out of jams.

What I didn't like was how the constant state of being adversarial made me behave. Always on the defensive, always ready to fight, always suspicious of the motive of others, I tended to see the world in a most cynical way. Which is fine if one can turn it off and leave it behind. Well, lawyers cannot, most likely due to the fact that the vast majority of their day is involved at some level in the practice of law. It was that way with me. Sixteen, seventeen hours a day. No, not always in the office or the courthouse, but on the phone, the computer, putting out "fires" for my clients. And thinking. A lot. Did I cross that 't', did I dot that 'i'? Did I miss a filing? Did I do all I could do for that client? The questions plagued me, and the time just flew.

Later in life, when I began to have children of my own, I didn't want to be that kind of father. But I now can see why my father did, at least to a point. He was a good provider. He knew how to do that. It just never occurred to him that by missing out on his kids' growing years he was actually missing his own life. But he taught me that lesson, in his own unknowing and unknown way.

They call his the "Greatest Generation," and for good reason. People then didn't get bogged down in a lot of meaningless conversation, and they didn't obsess about "finding" themselves or see themselves as highly important individuals. They had families to do that. The men and women of The Greatest Generation looked at life in a decidedly different way from those of us who are their legacy. They knew that their collective ambition and strength could stand against any foe, and that the United States and her way of life had proven to be things that were quite worth defending. I often say that were we to be called upon to fight the Second World War today, we wouldn't stand a chance. I'd like to be wrong about that.

Now, when a customer about my Dad's age comes in the shop, I think about the Greatest Generation. One of my customers is a decorated Vet of the Big Red One. Bullet-holed, shrapnel-laden and proud, he tells me of the battle for Sicily or the push north into mainland Italy. He said he was not transferred to England for D-Day, because he was "too experienced." Like so many of his comrades, next year I may not see him anymore.

The last time I saw Dad, I gave him a trim—including his bushy eyebrows—and shaved around his ears and neckline. We didn't say much, but we didn't need to. In March of 2002, a Saturday, I got the same call I'd been getting for thirty years. Dad was again in the hospital—he really might not come out this time—and I gave it my nonchalant 'okay.' Sunday, around noon, my brother called to say that our Dad had lost the battle this time. I wish I could say I was shocked, but the only thing I felt was relief.

He'd wanted to die for so long, and now it was over.

Fathers and sons, one generation to the next, are a perpetuation of life giving life giving life that molds and shapes our very existence, and links each of us humans to one another. I used to wonder if there would ever be another Greatest Generation. I'm not pretending that doesn't sound a bit odd; after all, how can there be more than one "Greatest?" What would Muhammad Ali say?

But I'm serious here. Like so many elements to life on this planet, perhaps the elevation of a certain generation—maybe even united as one with a common goal—is cyclical. Perhaps every fifty or seventy or a hundred years, an alignment of stars or a cold winter or some other phenomenon produces a clarity within the populace that results in a stunning group of children who grow faithfully into adults, who lock arms and go un-gently into the good night for the security or redemption of mankind.

Or, perhaps more plausible, after fifty or seventy or a hundred years of generation after generation hammering away at each other like cosmic dueling banjos, one generation of parents 'gets it,' and decides to instigate a systematic upheaval of the clutter—societal spring cleaning—and faces the tough task of raising tomorrow's leaders with a vigor and tenacity and sense of sacrifice that produces a million heroes.

If it's true, then we're definitely overdue.

My grandfather—my father's father—enjoyed a reputation within his immediate family as a firm but loving caregiver, and a hard working family man. I'm told that during the Depression Charles Franklin Thorne, Sr. would sometimes disappear for two weeks at a time, to "look for work."

I doubt it. I doubt it because I knew his son—my father—pretty well. And I know his son pretty well, too.

We're awesome in emergencies. We'll be the first—and most level-headed—guys on an accident scene. Crisis? No problem, we'll run in. Charge a well-defended beach-head, fly an attack jet into Kuwait through layer after layer of deadly triple-A? Easy.

Family stress? Well, we suck at that. We're men and we want to fix things and people can't be fixed. (Okay, okay...I've got to admit right here that I'm no "fixer." Dismantler? Demolisher? I'm your man. I was just being metaphorical when I said we were men and we fix things, because that's the general tendency for men. I can't fix anything, except maybe dinner). So, we do the next best thing; we escape. We get out of there pronto, and hope the touchy-feely issues solve themselves or at the very least get neatly swept under the rug. I'm inclined to believe that Grandpa Thorne, while strong and provisionary, was adept at identifying the situations within his family that elicited the hereditary response.

I was more than acutely aware of this legacy when an amazing thing happened: My wife became pregnant.

This was no "Jesus' face in the grilled cheese" miracle: Two months after we were married, Tracy had had surgery that removed half of her reproductive system.

"I'd have taken out the other side, too," the good doctor informed us in recovery, "but we hadn't discussed it beforehand. It's a mess."

He went on. "I just want to let you know that you'll never have children naturally." That was the wrong thing to say, and the wrong time. I led him by the elbow out the door and explained in no uncertain terms what a dickhead he was for saying that to her now. He assumed a position of repose and meekly conveyed his apology. He understood.

We saw two fertility specialists. The first one said "no way." The second one said, "Sure, there's a chance you could have children naturally; and your chance is ten million to one. That's a quote. He recommended In Vitro Fertilization (that he, of course, routinely performed—at $12,000 a pop). I could see that Tracy was considering it when, after we discussed the entire procedure a bit more, I realized I could have none of it. Why? "Selective Reduction."

Briefly stated, the doctor would place living embryos—made up of my sperm and Tracy's egg—into her uterus. But he wouldn't put just one or two; he was talking five and six. That many, in case some didn't "take."

"Well," I asked, "what do we do if they all take?" I thought: Raising Arizona.

That's when he said it: "Selective Reduction."

Now, I'm a lawyer and I'm used to euphemism to the extent that my antennae are on guard for anything that sounds too pretty. My antennae went on full alert.

"Explain that, Doc," I said.

After he danced around a definition for a minute or so, I realized what he was saying: Abortion.

And that clinched it. After that, we did nothing to enhance our chances of having a child. Which made for quite a surprise when, fourteen months later (and I'm not going to go into the roller-coaster ride of that year-plus), Tracy told me that she was pregnant.

I doubted that.

But it was true and in October of 2000, Sweet Caroline emerged into the world, pure, perfect and totally natural. My miracle baby. I wrote a song.

But that's nothing.

Sixteen months after that, Tracy had some more news. Yep.

I really doubted that. Even so, I was simply unprepared for the results of the first sonogram, in April of 2002.

Doctor Clyde Skene is a well-worn obstetrician who's probably delivered something like 30,000 babies. An easy-going man with scruffy white hair and mustache, Dr. Skene's a soft-spoken professional with a hint of Florida cracker. Truthfully, I can't tell you if Dr. Skene has encountered legal problems involving his assistance with pregnant moms, but certainly none that could justify $4,000 per week for malpractice insurance. His is a lonesome specialty around my community. The largest OB clinic in our county went out of business a few years ago. Still, Dr. Skene continues to labor on (couldn't resist, sorry), and he was Tracy's doctor with all of her Florida pregnancies.

Doctor Skene was about to perform the sonogram when I reminded him of something:

"We don't want to know the gender of the baby." I told him that if he saw something on the screen that might give away the gender to please move the probe. He said he would.

Old Doc puts the probe on her belly, all smeared up with contact gel, stares at the screen and makes one pass.

Abruptly, he replaced the probe in its holder, picked up a chair next to him, and brought it over to me.

"You better sit down, Dad."

It was at that moment that my brain began to analyze the split-second image I thought I'd seen on the screen: Two heads. I rationalized—for a moment—that the sonogram had "echoed" or some such anomaly. Then a dread fell over me when I thought: The baby has two heads. Curiously, I never once considered the obvious reason I saw two heads on the screen. Twins.

Anyway, as soon as we confirmed that Tracy was carrying two babies, I became very uneasy. Ironically, the source of my anxiety was found in two different yet related issues. First, I prayed they weren't boys. I honestly prayed to God that they weren't boys. And second, I worried that, if they were boys, they would be stained by the legacy. Tracy said something I'll never forget, because she, too, was aware of the Thorne Male Legacy.

"It can stop now. You can stop it now."

I hadn't thought of that.

And so, like my father before me, I have two sons. Twins. Now they are eight years old and now I get it. And they, along with their sisters, have produced in my mind a clarity and understanding that every generation has the potential to be a Greatest Generation. Every child is born with a precise DNA and Collective Unconscious to be able to create, invent, build, dream and lead. Why so many are indifferent and selfish, hate, hurt, kill and self-destruct has less to do with them and so much to do with us, and our parents and grandparents.

So I have hope, an American ideal that never seems to go out of style. Hope for tomorrow and hope for today, despite the multi-layered issues and myriad difficulties faced by a mixed bag of people in a complex world. And I have a searing knowledge of my responsibility as father to these four children; that if they are to become part of the next Greatest Generation then I have a tremendous responsibility to build within them a proper and strong foundation. And that means being around them, being present, giving them something more than a roof over their heads and three squares. Having my own barbershop gives me the kind of flexibility to achieve that objective.

A fellow about 35 years old came into the shop a few days ago for a High-and-Tight. He sat in the old faded-chrome and green-leathered Kochs barber chair and, as I draped him he asked, "Whatever happened to them pictures they used to have on that wall over there," indicating the far corner.

I smiled; it's a question I get once in a while.

"Well," I started, "I hear they're in storage somewhere..."

His eyes moistened and he smiled wide. "My picture was up there," he said, matter-of-factly. He exhibited pure pride as he touched a familiar past, and I immediately experienced a most satisfying warmth.

Maybe some things they do make like they used to.

Loo-Ray

Because I live in South Florida, I meet a lot of people from all over the country and the world. They come to South Florida—either temporarily or permanently—for the sun. Naturally, of late the sun is the only reason to retire to Florida; the economic downturn has hit my state harder than most.

I've lived in a lot of different places up and down the East Coast, and I can often share experiences with my clients. And the places I haven't been, like Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Detroit? Well, I feel like I've been there, too. I can relate.

Pittsburgh has the Steelers who, even if they hadn't won the "Stupid" Bowl last year would still find their way into any conversation with a fan. Six frickin' rings! Bradshaw, Harris, frickin' Steel Curtain. Also, Pittsburgh has Primanti Brothers, and any place that makes a colossal sandwich with the fries and slaw right there between the bread must have read my mind.

I know that there is some kind of road race in Indianapolis and basketball (a topic we simply do not allow to be discussed in the barbershop) is pretty popular there. A lot of my snowbird customers do not live in Indianapolis. About twenty miles north of Indianapolis or some other proximate location is where they live.

Detroit? Well, I know a couple of barbers who went to the Detroit Barber College which was, even back then, situated in what has to be worst section of Detroit (which is like saying the bad side of Hell). I've observed that Detroit's sports fans display their appreciation for the Red Wings' Stanley Cup victory by burning the city down and looting the local businesses. I don't want to be around when they lose. None of my clients is from there, either. North of there. Between Detroit and Flint.

Naturally there are other places called "home" for my retirees and Snowbird customers; I've lived in some of them.

For a period of time, I lived in Northern Virginia. Springfield, to be exact. I'm sure there was a time when Springfield was a sleepy place from whence government workers commuted to our nation's capitol, but when I lived there it was a very busy place from whence government workers commuted. I did not commute to Washington. I worked for a local utility company, which eventually brought me into the company of one Mr. Phil Hicks.

A likeable, easy-going man about my age, Phil is easy to warm up to. He has a happy face with laughing eyes, his weight seems to ping-pong a bit, and he is never in anything resembling hurry. Two fists full of vitamins requiring lots of liquid flow down his gullet every morning, and if you ask him his occupation, he'll tell you he's a banker. To him, however, work is secondary. He lives.

Phil is in no way a musician, yet is without question the foremost authority on Eric Clapton I have ever met (my friend Kelli Arrowsmith is right up there with him, by the way. I say this now because it is true and because she will kill me if I don't acknowledge her undying devotion to the world's greatest guitarist; she would literally kill me). Phil and I would sometimes just sit in his basement listening to EC and, from time to time during one of the master's solos I'd see Phil's fingers on the arm of the chair moving right along with Slowhand's. Should have thrust a guitar into his hands back then.

Phil is my best friend. That I am likely not his is a credit to the scores of people who find themselves naturally gravitating to his persona. But he is one of perhaps two or three men on earth with whom I am completely comfortable in the knowledge that what he says, he means. That any criticism he has is delivered out of brotherly love with absolutely no axe to grind. That if I need him, he is there, and vice versa. He has a singular understanding of the length and breadth of life and accepts his place in it, knowing that it doesn't last forever and that he will not squander any of his precious time in fret or worry. If you met Phil, you'd feel the same way.

Back in those years in Northern Virginia, Phil and I, along with our mutual friend, Dan Lynch, began an unintended ritual that lasted about eight years. Every Saturday morning, the three of us would arrive before dawn at the Burke Lake Municipal Golf Course in Burke, Virginia for a round of golf.

I am well aware that there are a number of people in the world who do not play golf. And, for those who do play, there are many who do not play well. Statistics indicate that nearly 90 per cent of all golfers will never achieve an eighteen-hole score under 100. What that means is that there are an awful lot of golfers who either have no natural ability or talent for the game, or play the game for something other than to play it well. I am in this latter category.

To me, the game of golf is much like taking a four-hour vacation from the rest of the world. Lush and scenic, the courses themselves make me feel like I'm just out for a leisurely stroll on the world's largest lawn. The mechanics of the game—well a part of me now—allow me to get some exercise in the fresh air. And, although I play an awful lot by myself (and in the process garner astonishingly low scores), I greatly enjoy the camaraderie of being in the presence of my friends.

The executive par-3 track at the Burke Lake Municipal Golf Course is simply beautiful. With rolling, tree-lined fairways and well-manicured greens, it is a challenging short course replete with hazards. We even named some of them: A large overhanging oak limb (right in the trajectory of the prefect approach shot to number 4 was named "The Craw." The large pond that often collected our tee shots on 2 was "Houston," as in "Houston, we have splashdown." The treed area with the ever-present ground-covering leaves on 16 was "Downtown," and the knoll I always seemed to land on at 17 was "Thorne Hill." Still is, if you ask me.

Phil, Dan and I nearly always teed off into pitch-black darkness, often prior to the course attendants' arrival, and paid at the turn (between holes nine and ten). On occasion, when the weather was inhospitable for any golfers (or the course crew), we dropped our clubs over the rail and played anyway. I remember one January morning wearing three pairs of pants.

Those mornings were magical. It was almost as if some musky fragrance hung in that pre-dawn air that just seemed to lift us out of our mundane world, erasing a week's worth of clutter from our brains.

Often the Canada geese would come in on approach at "Houston," and it was a sight to behold. The lead goose would split off from the flock and turn downwind and then final, while the rest of the squadron circled. If he made it down without incident, the rest would follow as daylight peeked over the tree line. Other times, the darkness would come alive with an array of shooting stars. Always, however, greeting the new day brought optimism and new birth.

When the time came for me to transfer, I bade farewell to my friends and moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Unfortunately, and mostly due to me dropping the ball, we fell out of touch.

Flash forward fifteen years. I'm a barber (I know you already know this), working in a shop in Bradenton, Florida. It was a nice, full-service family-oriented shop. In fact, it was the very shop where I used to get my hair cut, where Candy works, the one who talked me into becoming a barber in the first place. It's not her shop, though. Belongs to a lady named Jody—used to be Campbell, then it was Bowes, then it was Campbell again, and now it's something else. She's a fantastic barber and a nice lady who gave me a chance, so I refuse to be goaded into retelling any of the ugly rumors that float around Bradenton about her. I'm pretty much convinced they're all false anyway.

So I'm in the shop clipping a client's taper while Candy was behind me working on a woman's hair, and I overheard this:

"I just moved here from Northern Virginia." I quieted myself. Listened. Clipped.

She said, "I just retired from the electric company—," and I listened closer. "—I was in the Alexandria office..." I had to say something.

I said, "I worked in that office years ago," and she looked at me in the mirror.

"Well, I worked there for a while and then transferred to the Springfield office," is what she said.

I stopped now, looked at her. Didn't recognize her. "I opened that office," I told her.

Her face said You gotta be kidding me. "Well, who do you know from there?" she asked, and before I could answer she began listing names.

Finally, I piped up. "Do you know Phil Hicks?"

Here, she stopped talking, looked at me and smiled. "Phil Hicks is my best friend." Amazing. Her name was Noel.

I got his email address from Noel and sent out a message after I got home that day. He replied. We phoned. Not long after, in the mail I received a souvenir golf ball and score card: Burke Lake Golf Course.

That Summer Phil came to Florida with his wife, Jo. Although I hadn't aged a bit, Phil had grown older. We played golf. No time had passed.

The following spring, Phil sent me an email regarding a perennial golf outing he and a bunch of guys had been at for about fourteen years. It was an offhand invitation to come along, but with me living in Florida, a new career and a burgeoning family, Phil held no hopes for me. He was just "taking my temperature," as he put it. I asked him By what method?

I kept the email, but I'd already decided that a trip like that was out of the question for a lot of reasons. Oh, I did a cursory check of available flights, just for the heck of it. And, well, I had some fun saving a few bucks each week, just to see if I could put together the $250 for the trip. And, hell, I figured it wouldn't hurt to bone up on my golf a bit, so I did that. I played all the area courses as often as I could; Waterlefe, Imperial Lakes, Stoneybrooke, both county courses, River Run, River Club and Rolling Green.

But, I had assured myself that—although I may be able to plan for next year, this year was simply not an option.

So naturally—one-hundred per-cent powerless against a mystical inertia of which I was barely conscious—I immediately gathered together the required money and made flight reservations. On the Thursday following Memorial Day weekend I found myself at Dulles International with suitcase and golf clubs, waiting at the curb for my old friend to pick me up.

Phil took me on a tour of my old stomping ground and so much had changed I remember thinking: If he dropped me off here, I'd never find my way out.

Later that day, Phil and I stood outside the clubhouse at Burke Lake Golf Course under a pristine sunny sky, waiting for Dan, who arrived at 5 PM, sharp. As a further surprise, my old friend, Derek, showed up. He, too, had aged. And gathered a bit of girth around the middle. When he hugged me, though, I was immediately transported back. Again. The familiarity of his voice and his easy demeanor had me hating time. We teed off. Played 18 holes. Reminisced, a little.

Mostly, though, we caught up. The talk was about today. Kids. Wives. Jobs. Dan was teaching school and his genius daughter had graduated Princeton and was seeking research work with her equally-genius husband. Phil was a bank manager and his sons were doing well, all grown up now. Phil's great wife, Jo, somehow still mustered the strength or indifference to tolerate him. Derek's supremely talented daughter was moving from New York to Chicago to join a world-famous dance company.

Dan hit the ball into "Houston." Phil went "Downtown," Derek could have cared less and, of course, I landed on "Thorne Hill." "The Craw" was gone, succumbed to either chain saw or natural causes. Other than that, no time had passed.

Later, over Chinese food, we looked at each other, a bit older; Phil and I somewhat rounder. Gray hair and a few wrinkles now occupied the places where youth once promised a life with no end. We took some pictures. Wordlessly, we affirmed the bond between us, promised to reunite again the following year.

The next morning Phil and I awakened early, loaded Phil's Malibu and headed for the Town & Country Diner (the official stepping-off place for the Luray Golf Trip) on the way to Luray and our golf weekend.

Devoid of frills, the Town & Country is a warm atmosphere thick with the fine aroma of southern breakfast: bacon, biscuits and sausage gravy, hash browns, grits, eggs. And lots of coffee. The dining room was abuzz with chatter emanating from several tables. The tables themselves were engaged in battle with the guts of middle-aged men in snug golf attire, and I was duly introduced. Most of the guys had at one time been employed by the power company; some still remained. I immediately forgot all their names.

(After my second year at Luray, the Town & Country experienced a significant fire that many speculated began in the cook's hair, but the specific origin was never officially reported. The rebuilding took longer than expected, and we were forced to relocate our breakfast to another diner in Warrenton. While bursting with diner ambience, the food was horrible. Runny eggs and bacon "chips." We longed for our beloved Town & Country to the extent that some of the fellows actually wrote letters to the owners, inquiring as to whether there was anything they could do to hasten the renovation and re-opening.)

After breakfast that morning, Phil drove us through the foothills on Highway 211, a scenic reverie of ever-rising green domes dotted with the shadows of passing clouds. Each hillcrest and turn drew us closer to Piney Mountain and its switchback pass, with Phil muttering something about "breaking his record" this time through.

I held on for dear life as Phil negotiated the sharp serpentine turns first up (upon the cushion of a live version of Tulsa Time from a bootleg tape of unknown origin), then down (Layla) the mountain, while some of the most beautiful scenery in the United States whizzed past. It wasn't until we straightened out that I was able to re-acquaint myself with the splendor of the Shenandoah Valley.

Luray, Virginia is home to Luray Caverns, a "spectacular natural wonder" discovered 125 years ago and enjoyed by millions of visitors since. The deep, eons-old caverns and their formations of rusty-colored stalactites and stalagmites come alive in a pristine darkness. A pipe-organ made entirely from stalactites plays in one cave to this day.

Luray is a quaint old Appalachian town with a few motor lodges, a dozen casual restaurants, and a Wal-Mart. I remember one Easter Sunday years ago when I had been camping in the area, I flew through Luray on my way home in my sports car and almost missed the place.

The inhabitants of Luray (they pronounce it "Loo-ray") are simple, honest people who enjoy life outside the chaos that is the Washington Metropolitan area. They raise their families and work their jobs and go to church on Sunday. Friday or Saturday night they might mosey over to Dan's Steakhouse for Prime Rib or fried chicken. They seem happy. Peaceful. Related.

Each year, however, that peacefulness is interrupted by a group of miscreants and malcontents eager to stay and play the "Luray Caverns Country Club," a misnomer if ever there were one. True, there is the golf course; lush, beautiful, expansive. And yes, there is a tennis court, although I've never seen anybody play on it; perhaps because it is built on a slope and is rife with cracking cement. No Pool. No fancy restaurant. No clean-cut cart attendant to wipe down your clubs and tell you your 99 was a "good score on this course."

Okay, there is a pretty nice—albeit rustic—clubhouse, replete with leather sofas and chairs, a huge fieldstone fireplace, dark, hand-hewn timbers, and the heads of large animals mounted on the wall. Columns of picture windows look out on to the course, and to the mountains beyond. I could just sit there all day. After my scores last year, that idea calls for serious consideration.

On one side is a small snack bar with homemade sandwiches and drinks at yesterday's prices, a nice touch.

The folks who work here are the same ones from last year, and the last thirty years, a fact alone that brings continuity to the entire trip. I like that I see the same people every year. Sometimes I fantasize that they are happy to see me as well.

So no, this isn't The Greenbriar.

None of that matters, though, because what they do have is a golf course. A beautiful, challenging, sobering, humiliating link of fairways and greens carved out of the hills and gullies of the rich Shenandoah Valley. It is the slowest moving roller-coaster on earth. And yes, it will make you sick.

2009 marked my fifth year coming to Luray, and I can tell you now that we play 36 holes a day for three days on this course every year and nobody ever complains about the redundancy.

On the list of Things You Never Hear: "This hole again?"

Because, if ever there was a golf course carved out by the Creator himself, it is the Luray Caverns Country Club. The magic begins on the very first hole.

Standing on the elevated tee that quickly falls off to a narrow fairway sided on the right by ancient oaks and the left by the tree-lined Shenandoah River, one has a feeling that there is no place to which to hit the ball. (In our group, a healthy hook that ends up in the river elicits "Oh, Shenandoah..." in several keys.) In the middle of the fairway sits an opening to the cave system, about 305 yards out, ready to accept the offering from the long-driver in the bunch (no free drop, by the way). The fairway continues, now upward and turning slightly right, yet sloping to the left (towards the tree-lined river), to an elevated green. Miss it, and your ball is almost always lost.

Get to the green and you're about 40 per cent in the bag. Now come the putts. Lots of 'em. I have personally been three feet above the hole one second and (after giving my ball the slightest tap) sixty feet below—and completely off the green—the next. Walk off with a seven or better, and you've done well. Seven or more and you've survived. But none of it matters.

On the list of Things You Always Hear: "Man, that's a beautiful hole."

Every hole produces similar sentiments. Over and over again. I never get tired of Luray. Because as grand and green and hilly and rolling as the course is, the western Virginia sky pours over it—and me—and I am transformed.

Although not sworn to secrecy, I won't tell you what happens on this trip in the evenings, after the golf. Suffice to say that nighttime activity includes lots of alcohol and decks of cards; a VCR in one guy's room plays movies with swanky seventies background music and little by way of plot. The smell of Ben-Gay mixes with ten-dollar cigars in the hands of men who don't usually smoke. Guys gather in small groups outside the motel rooms chattering away in a bevy of regional accents. And lots of laughter at topics ranging from strange-looking golf swings to leprechaun abductions to sodomy, lots of sodomy (please don't ask).

The rear of the Luray Caverns Motor Lodge motel overlooks a small sloping ravine of meadow and pine groves. At night, the setting begs golfers to break out their wedges and some scuffed balls for a late night pitching contest. If the Moon is full and the fog is absent, we can almost see them land. We think we see them land, anyway. As some of us age, the din winds down a bit earlier each year.

On Sunday, as foursomes finish the "Championship Round," golf carts one-by-one form a semi-circle around the 18th green. The last group in is greeted by howls and jeers (and the occasional golf clap) from the "gallery" of drunken and semi-drunken golfers-turned-spectators. When it's all over, Chip Gilliland (who puts this thing together and has for 22 years) hands out a few bucks to the winners, second place, closest to the pin and long drive (won in 2009 by a 51-year-old writer from Florida). Guys shake hands, give hugs, see-you-next-year's and other well-wishes. Again, as we age, next year comes quicker.

Phil, Lenny (a high school chum of Phil whom I'm happy to now call my friend) and I pile into Phil's Malibu for the white-knuckled ride back to civilization, Kung Pao Chicken at the Sino Inn, and our own farewells. The little rituals and traditions provide stability that forms the very essence of who we are as humans. We need them.

Later, when I eventually pile myself into my seat on the Southwest 737, the nose comes up and the wheels fold into her belly, and I find myself looking forward to the Thursday after Memorial Day, next year.

Phil called me on a Monday morning in September of 2008; the news was not good.

"I've got a little, ahhhh, prostate cancer." His tone was solemn but, as we conversed it was clear to me that it had taken some supreme effort on the part of his doctors to actually locate the tumor, but the advised course of action was a radical prostectomy. I thought that was well, radical, given all I'd heard about prostate cancer. He assured me that all the alternatives included myriad side-effects that might have lifelong-lasting drawbacks for which he was not willing to endure.

I'd known that some prostate cancers are quite aggressive, as evidenced by the rather quick departure of the singer Dan Fogelberg, who died of just such an aggressive strain in December of 2007. Still, I wasn't worried (thankfully, Phil did not have prostrate cancer, an apparently miserable disease from which a number of my senior customers suffer).

Doctors removed Phil's prostate in February of 2009, however preliminary tests performed immediately after the removal still indicated an elevated PSA (prostate Specific Antigen, a test performed to determine the presence of cancer in and around the prostate). We all had to wait until mid-May for the next test. It was good news. Phil, as I'd often surmised, was a complete zero. They got it all.

Many of us play 36 holes a day while in Luray. The first 18 are played, one has to say, with a bit more attention to mechanics and strategy. We try—a little. Oh, there are those who sandbag—the artificial exacerbation of one's shortcomings—in order to increase one's handicap and thereby stage him in a better place to win on Sunday. And who could blame him? I mean, there's Twenty-Five Dollars on the line here. Most of us play poorly enough to be accused of overt sandbagging.

Hear this now: Should you ever play a round of golf with me in which there is both a need and an opportunity to sandbag and you think I may be guilty of such an ethical infraction, let me assure you: I really do suck. True enough, I can crush a driver well over 300 yards, sometimes even straight. However, it's the 3-foot shot at the end that always seems to have my number. Unfortunately, the long drive and the short putt have the same value: one.

The second 18 holes, however, are party time. In fact, only a handful of the guys are actually stupid enough to play an additional round, especially as we get older. So, Phil, Lenny and I step right up to number one and do it again, for the love of the game, the love of the serenity of Luray, and as an entirely unnecessary excuse to drink. A lot. Like those mornings at Burke Lake, there seems to be a musky fragrance in the air during these second rounds as well; a curious development, the origin of which is something I really can't say.

Halfway down the fairway of the third hole—a few years back—Phil stopped the golf cart. Surrounded by greens and blues and the occasional chirp of a bird, the quiet consumed me.

Phil turned towards me. "I am sooooooo fucked up," he said. His eyes and the tone of his voice said: And I'm astonished to be so.

I heard myself say, "Me, too." I don't remember if I was astonished.

We began to laugh. In fact, I found it damn near impossible to stop.

Phil drove on to Number 4.

Let me crystallize this fact: "Flat" would not be an appropriate adjective to describe the Luray Caverns Country Club. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a level place on the entire golf course. Perfectly executed shots may leave a golfer with such an unholy lie—downhill, sidehill or uphill, sidehill, or both—that few of us are prepared to make any evaluation of the shot we just hit until we actually drive up close to the ball.

Getting to the Number 4 tee box from the Number 3 green requires the negotiation of a steep upwardly-angled snake of black-topped cart path bordered by a fringe of gravel. That part went fine; that part we did. When we exited the cart that day, Phil decided to relieve himself in the woods, which moved further upward from the cart path. When I turned to look up at him, Phil was slowly folding in on himself down the side of a tree. It was like watching a deflating roadside advertisement for a used car dealer. I determined that he was, as he had so adroitly observed back in the cart, sooooo fucked up.

Phil righted himself and began stumbling back down the woods to the cart path and, as he stood precariously next to and below me on the path, I asked him how he was doing.

"mm---," was all he got out before his eyes went suddenly empty and his body followed gravity like a felled Redwood, down and away from me. For the record (and whether Lenny will vouch for this or not, I can't say), I did make a grab for him, but his 230-plus pounds were falling away from me and immediately I knew that was futile, so I let go.

My friend landed just to the right of the cart path and hit like a refrigerator thrown from the third floor balcony. His head bounced off the gravel just ten inches to the left of a jagged piece of flat stone the size of a toaster. Thankfully, his face broke the fall.

During a private conversation later, Lenny and I discovered we were thinking the same thing when Phil hit the ground: How the hell are we going to get his body out of here and finish the round?

For the next three days, Phil looked like that Mel Gibson character in "The Man Without A Face," half of his face on fire with welts and sores. It may have hurt a lot worse than he let on, but Phil was a real trouper. As a doctor (of Jurisprudence, mind you, but a doctor nonetheless), I ordered regular and large doses of Grey Goose vodka. For the pain.

But something happens every year.

A few years back, I ripped my MCL on the Eighth hole—on Friday! I'd left a wedge up near the green and walked up to get it. As I walked, I noticed the group behind us getting ready to hit and made the curious (not to mention unlawful, in golf anyway) decision to jog. Three strides and I hit some uneven terrain (I told you it's not flat), and Bam! a jolt of electricity coursed up and down the inside of my right leg. At the turn we got some ice and I continued to play the rest of the weekend. In retrospect, that decision may not have been so bright; but hell, I'd already paid for the weekend and wasn't about to spend it in a chair.

Two years ago, Hugh ((who rooms with Lenny since they both have Sleep Apnea and both use a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device)) had slipped out and driven home in the middle of the night. Although he had his reasons, I can't remember if I thought they were good ones.

Last year, Frank and Neil managed to lose control of their golf cart, performing a spiraling series of pirouettes down the high and steep fairway on the Fifth hole. In so doing, the duo managed to locate the smaller of only two bodies of standing water on the entire course. Nobody saw them do it. But on the hillside, when viewed from the adjoining and elevated Sixth fairway, the mid-morning Sun illuminated a pattern of dew-laden skid marks in the grass which revealed their gyrating course down, like still-air smoke in the wake of an aerobatic airplane.

The human male is an unusual critter. Except for Phil and Lenny, during the year I don't speak to any of the guys who come to Luray. Yet each year I see the smiling faces and hear the jocular banter and shake the hands of this eclectic group of men as though the last time I saw them was last week instead of a year ago. Men have the capacity to maintain a tensile-strengthened silent bond where women must talk. This is not to offend the fairer gender; it is just how we are made. Were it not for these annual respites in the peaceful Virginia hills, my life would be missing a small but key ingredient.

As the years develop velocity and scoot me well into the back nine of my own life, I find myself cursing Time. Collect and store all the money you can get your hands on, you will still be a slave to the calendar. Time is the real precious commodity.

When I was young, I relegated the eight years of Saturday mornings with Phil and Dan to a temporal, isolated island in time. It was, is how I saw it. To me, all of life was a series of was's, groups of years or months or even days, each with a cloudy beginning but also finite. Nothing lasts forever. As such, I saw no reason to invest too much of myself in any relationship. Tragedy.

As I raced on to each next bubble, usually a broken heart and a wounded soul in my wake, the uncomplicated beginning on each new horizon made a promise that for years I chose to believe: You will live forever.

Naturally, that is a lie. Those whose hearts can break and whose souls can wound already know.

But, for as long as I do live, and for as long as I can, if you need me the weekend after Memorial Day, you'll know where to find me.

I can't imagine what good I'll be to you, though.

If The Glove Doesn't Fit, You Have To Quit...

Hey Wendell," says Gary, a younger client of mine as he sits in the chair, "What do you call 3000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?" He's already laughing, but I don't allow him the satisfaction.

"A good start," I say, and he says, "A good start."

I know the punch line; I know all the punch lines. But here's my favorite lawyer joke:

Three guys break down in the country and have to sleep at a farmhouse for the night.

"Alright," says the farmer as he rubs the back of his neck, "But one of you will have to sleep in the barn."

"No problem," says one guy, a Hindu mathematician.

After a while, there is a knock on the door to the farmhouse. The Hindu mathematician says, "I'm very sorry, but there is a cow out there and my religion does not allow me to sleep with cows," he says.

"I'll go," says the next guy, a Rabbi.

After a while, there is a knock on the farmhouse door. The Rabbi says, "I'm very sorry, but there are two pigs out there and my religion does not allow me to sleep with pigs," says the Rabbi.

The last guy, a lawyer, reluctantly agrees to take the place in the barn.

After a while, there is a knock on the door to the farmhouse and when the farmer opens it, there is a cow and two pigs.

At least three of my clients are retired lawyers; one still practices, a little. While they each specialize in different areas of the law, they all share a common character trait: they are quite full of themselves. And I like them.

You may already know from my last book, but I, too am a former attorney. That book, "An Elephant In The Living Room – Is It Too Late To 'Kill All The Lawyers'?", was one former lawyer's derivations of the law, what I saw and what I experienced in the years I practiced. It is not a flattering portrayal of lawyers—most lawyers, anyway. I ranted and raged about a number of things I saw—and see—as wrong in the Law; the loopholes and judicial activism and the deputizing of Americans into "pseudo prosecutors and civil litigants," on the lookout for any conceivable wrongdoing of another, always ready to play the lawsuit card.

And the lawyers themselves. Lawyers—and the practice of law as a profession—have systematically ruined and defamed what was once an honorable and astute profession, and have taken the American people right along with them. Gone are the general practitioners who lived in a town with neighbors and behaved in a neighborly fashion. Lawyers used to be called upon to apply the law to a dispute in an orderly and fair-minded manner. There were no bloodthirsty and greedy attorneys looking to savagely and carelessly destroy, discredit or disembowel an adversary. Rather, good lawyers were called upon to rationally dissect a dispute and utilize a common-sense approach at settling differences.

No more.

Now—and especially with the advent of epidemic of "Have you been injured?" advertising—lawyers fight in any way possible to not only win a case, but to do whatever is necessary to leave the defeated party in shambles, financially ruined and impossibly crushed. It is a complicated though not complex development within the confines of the practice of law that has created a new breed of lawyer, at once praised and despised, all because of greed and the desperate need to win.

I'm sure you've already read that book, so I'll not digress anymore.

But, in case you haven't read the book (yet), you may be asking yourself the same question a lot of people ask: "How did you go from being a lawyer to being a barber?" What they mean is What kind of idiot would do such a thing? Usually I answer the same way: If you have to ask, you'd never understand. And I still think that's generally true. In other words, unless you're the type of person who understands that the journey through life is enriched by a bevy of coveted gifts that money can't buy, you may find it hard to wrap your head around a guy walking away from a lucrative professional career. If you're reading this book, the likelihood is that you're not one of these.

I'll allow, however, that it is a strange transition; in fact, nobody in Florida before me ever went from being a licensed attorney to a licensed barber. There was a gentleman, however, who called me one day a few years back. He'd seen an article that was written about me in the paper and wanted to let me know that he had actually once been a barber and was now a lawyer. He thought that was funny. He'd also been involved in local politics. (I get asked a lot to run for office; I can't think of anything more masochistic than a political campaign, except maybe actually winning).

But it is a valid question. Why would a seemingly intelligent man making good money simply by running his mouth and squeezing money out of corporations and insurance companies willingly walk away from all that? I say 'willingly' because I'm sure there are some naysayers out there who must think I was disbarred or was otherwise disgraced into leaving the practice. I'll say this now: I left willingly.

Well, where to start? The eighteen-hour day? The traveling? How about the fact that I was always on, that is, always playing lawyer? Even when I was home, my mind was working overtime, thinking about things. Wondering if everything I'd done that day was legal, ethical, moral, and, most of all, correct. Did I make a stupid mistake? Forget to file some important document? Call everyone back? Did I do enough to land that new client?

And that's not all. In my experience, there is one major drawback to being an attorney that most people may have never considered: The Clients.

The legal client is a rather stubborn creature. Most nerve-wracking was when I gave advice (advice I was being paid to render) that was ultimately deemed wrong by a client, who refused to follow it. Sometimes it's just too darned hard for a client to do the work or to take the punishment or to admit that he or she screwed up. Sometimes a client would come to me with a basketful of problems, wanting me to wave a magic wand and make it all go away.

Well, I wasn't the kind of lawyer who played golf with judges or mucky-mucked with the higher-ups and made barstool deals. I practiced the old-fashioned way, gathering evidence and arguing and using the law as best I could in representing a client. Sure, it would have been easier to have formed the kind of alliances that lots of lawyers do in an effort to receive favorable treatment in any given case. Fact is, however, that I never possessed the pedigree or had a fraternal common denominator, nor was I willing to amass and practice the variety of pretenses a bad lawyer must have. Yes, I lost cases or received less than satisfying results for some clients by being the Serpico lawyer.

Sometimes, though, good lawyering pays off. Case in point: I once had a client who was way behind in making his condominium fee payments. The fee was about a hundred dollars a month and he'd let them go for over a year. He didn't know that the condo association could legally foreclose his mortgage. It could, and it did. He handed me the lawsuit papers he'd received and a letter from the association's lawyer indicating that the suit could be stopped and the account brought current for a sum of around $9,000. That seemed like a lot of money. But I figured that late fees, interest and, of course, a generous attorney's fee just might add up to that much.

I contacted the lawyer for the condo association and initially agreed to a payment arrangement of about $200 a month, which my client believed he could afford. That was one hurdle: stopping the foreclosure. At the same time, I sent the paperwork, which included copies of my client's condo fee account history, to a forensic accountant friend of mine.

Well, after the client had made about three or four payments, my friend called me with some news.

"These guys have made some crucial mistakes," he told me. "They've double-charged late fees and interest, and charged interest on late fees," a Federal Law no-no.

I already knew the Federal Fair Debt Collection Act pretty well, having handled a couple of debtors' cases before. Although few Federal laws are now written with the well-being of the majority of Americans in mind, The Federal Fair Debt Collection Act was written to level the playing field between greedy Creditors and their hapless Debtors.

The Federal Fair Debt Collection Act is behind things like "Lemon Laws" and three-day cooling off periods, establishes lawful methods of collecting debts, and provides rules for disclosure and other limitations on creditors. In this case, it provides for steep penalties against a creditor for filing a lien or a lawsuit or what's known as a "Demand" for money that is not actually owed to a creditor. Historically, creditors had demonstrated that they would go to great lengths to strong-arm a debtor into paying up, including filing a lawsuit (even people who are deadbeats will get serious when the matter becomes legal). One of the stiff penalties for faulty or fraudulent Demand lawsuits allows a court (or jury) the right to triple any damage award. (There are other penalties the court can levy on a lawyer who signs his or her name to such a lawsuit, but courts usually don't exercise them).

Sometimes, though, creditors just make mistakes. Doesn't matter. You demand money that is not owed you, you're in violation. Armed with the information from my accountant friend, I contacted the Condo Association's lawyer.

"I don't know what to tell you," he began after I told him what the problem was. "I guess we'll have get with the client and look at the thing again and come up with the right numbers."

Uh-uh. Maybe a hundred years ago he gets a second chance. Not today.

"I don't think so; I think we're going to counter-sue under the Federal Fair Debt Collection Act and seek treble damages." I had him cold and he knew it.

"Well, can't we work something out?" And we did. I told him we'd take back all but $200 of what the client had paid him, plus a reasonable attorney's fee for me of $500. He quickly agreed.

Sounds good, right? A $9000 lawsuit goes away for $200. The association even agreed to pay my fee. I'm a genius. Enter the client.

Now, this client seemed like a nice guy; smart, well-employed, level-headed. Maybe not the most financially savvy guy, but okay. I tell him the deal. Me? I'm smiling, proud of myself for being so damn smart and clever.

The man stands there with a painful look in his eye and says this: "You mean I have to pay $200?" He really said that. Swear to God.

"No," I quickly turned against my client. "No, you can just go ahead and keep paying the $200 a month for five years to get this thing cleared up. Better yet," I continue, "why not just not pay anything and let 'em throw you out of your house!" I was incredulous.

I continued. "They are going to cut you a check for everything you've paid them except the $200, and they are going to pay my fee. Think you can live with that??"

Here was his dilemma: Like a lot of clients, once I told this guy that he had been wronged, the dollar signs lit up in his eyes and all he's thinking is jackpot.

"Wellllllll....how much could we get if we—what did you call it?—counter-sue?" See? He's been watching too many lawyer commercials.

That's my point. This guy had chosen to ignore a financial obligation, allowing the problem to escalate to a nasty place he'd never imagined, foreclosure. His back was against the wall and he was desperate. He hired me. I got lucky and found an issue with the accounting and all but got him entirely off the hook.

But that wasn't enough for him or the legion of Americans who are constantly vigilant for the opportunity to strike it rich at the expense of another. It's the lottery but the odds are frighteningly better. It's called "Greed" and, while certainly not a novel emotion, in today's world lawyers have done their level best to cultivate the concept.

I guessed that's what this guy was thinking, anyway. I almost told him to get another lawyer, but instead illustrated that this was a lifeboat he didn't even have to row. Reluctantly, he told me he understood and ultimately agreed that it was a good deal. I sensed, however, that the potential of a windfall as a result of his own irresponsibility became a story that he'd one day regretfully parlay to the other drunks at the bar.

But that's nothing.

I once made the critical blunder of taking on a marital dissolution case. As legal cases go, a good divorce case can be a huge windfall for an attorney, especially if the couple has lots and lots of assets. Those of you who've been in the unhappy position know what I'm talking about here. A good matrimonial lawyer will always get the financial information right away, ostensibly so he can have some handle on the amounts to be divvied up. Really, though, he's just determining how much he can ultimately charge. No kidding.

Anyway, I'm thinking it's a good case and I do my level best not to care about the people at all; after all, that's what makes a 'good' lawyer. I got a nice retainer (I'm representing the wife), and started doing the work. That's when I realized that I didn't know diddly about matrimonial law. Sure, I'd been through a couple of divorces in my personal life by then, but they were both somewhat amicable and really there wasn't much to divide. Frantic, I made some phone calls to friends who'd handled divorces.

"Take the money and sit on it for a while."

"Get the financials right away; and prepare for another round of financials in a few months."

One highly experienced attorney asked, "You got the husband or the wife?

"The wife," I told him.

"Try not to screw her."

Helpful, I thought.

Eventually, I filed the lawsuit and had the husband served. He promptly called my office, threatened my life more than once using a vocabulary that was colorful if not vast, regularly casting out one term in particular I'd rather not print. Suffice to say that it begins with "C" and directly impugns my heterosexual reputation. You figure out the rest. He swiftly wrapped up his comments when I pointed out that his lawyer may not be exactly thrilled that he called, and that many lawyers tape all incoming calls. The man finished his un-sugarcoated rant by conveying his single-minded commitment to destroy my career, "...you worthless fuck from hell!"

I hung up thinking: What did I do?

The wife wasn't much better. Whenever we met, she prodded me constantly for support and fished for compliments.

"What the hell does he want with another woman? What's wrong with me, for Christ sake?" We were in my office and she sat across the desk from me

I say, "Nothing."

"I mean," she continued, "a lot of guys have wanted to have a crack at me, believe me." I watched cigarette paper become gray ash at a remarkable pace, so energetically was she drawing on the filter, and thought: A lot of guys did.

I assessed her appearance. Thin. Petite. Fine bottle-blonde hair cut in a chin-length bob. She wore tight black leggings with knee socks and a thong workout bikini bottom on the outside. A sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder in a revealing way spoke paragraphs; that and the way she just about fellated that Marlboro Light. Big ankle-high Nike's completed the "gym" look. The eighties gym look, anyway.

"I can imagine," I told her.

But one night the phone rang. I was dreaming about my office. In the dream, I had arrived one morning to find absolutely everything in the place gone. Not ransacked. Stolen. Everything. Come to find out, the IRS had seized it all, although I had no recollection of being in any tax trouble.

The ringing phone took away the dream but not the nagging fear that I was in some kind of trouble. The digital clock read 3:17.

"Yes?" I really was a pain in the ass then. Couldn't even say "Hello?"

"That sonofabitch is screwing his girlfriend in his car behind the BeerGarten!"

The voice was laden with a night's worth of alcohol, and the tone was Wicked Witch of The West meets Homelite Chain Saw. I knew immediately who it was.

"Ah, do you know what time it is?"

She continued as if she didn't hear the question. "It's a blue Miata; he's down there now; go get pictures! Catch that asshole red-handed!"

I sat up in bed. Wondered how she came to know this information, tried to remember what the hell a Miata was, but had the presence of mind not to question either. I weighed the matter, briefly. Decided that there'd be other times and that we should get a private investigator on it. Told her so. She was not happy and proceeded to launch her own tirade. She and hubby must have had one of those desk-top specialty calendars: "Profane Word of the Day." My guess is that the happy couple stopped tearing pages sometime in January.

"What the fuck am I paying you for?? Get down there before he's through. By the way, he takes a lot longer when he's been drinkin'..."

My next thought was crystal clear: No More Divorces.

Actually, my areas of expertise in the law were simple. Criminal Defense, and Plaintiff's Employment Discrimination.

Criminal Defense is an area of the law that I learned while both interning and working as an Assistant in the Public Defender's office. The Public Defender is a manifestation of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America which, it may surprise you, some Supreme Court Justices have actually heard of. A few have even read it and occasionally abide by it.

The Sixth Amendment, among other things, guarantees the accused the services of a lawyer for his defense. It does not guarantee that said appointed lawyer can do anything remotely resembling 'defense,' given serious budgetary constraints and especially after the accused has made fatal admissions to the 'helpful' police. Neither does it guarantee that the accused will be coherent, can add and subtract, is hygienic or even toothed. For a very little while, I felt sorry for them.

Called "indigent," these alleged criminals often have file folders that require roller carts so that their lawyers can bring them to the court room without risking a hernia. "Lengthy" is a term of which the press is fond, but does not begin to tell the story. The pages that add up to a career criminal's file would make a seasoned lumber tycoon weep like the president of the Sierra Club. After a lifetime involved in the commission of petty crimes ranging from drunk and disorderly to public intoxication to DUI to narcotics and gun possession and whatever, one would think the veteran perpetrator to be a wily cat, knowing his way around the involuntary provision of damning evidence. Nope.

The "Right To Remain Silent" is not the same as the "ability to remain silent." The logic composed by a night's worth of alcohol or drugs is exactly why each morning's jaunt to the jail produced a covey of bedraggled and smelly men and women who hadn't the slightest chance of acquittal. For that matter, they'd not even require a defense. Hello Plea Bargain.

As if you didn't know it already, the Public Defender relies heavily upon the Plea Bargain, a twentieth-century invention designed for the very purpose of expediting the legal process for the Public Defender. The number of cases is staggering. Presumed innocent, my ass.

When I first arrived at the office, I received a week or so worth of "training" from a seasoned Assistant Public Defender named Kurt. Kurt's caseload would have elicited a groan from a pack mule, but he carried the bulky files under one arm and scooted around the hallways of the old court house like a UPS driver, and he was a big man. From Kurt I learned the Public Defender's swift pace. Took me years to slow down.

As he scurried he gave me the important information: "This judge likes to smoke a lot; takes a lot of recesses." "That young, pretty redheaded judge? She used to be the lead prosecutor for the crimes against children; she hates defense lawyers." "That State's Attorney doesn't have a left testicle..." He also showed me how to do the job: Stand there and say nice stuff about your client during the penalty phase, after the Plea.

"Well, your honor, I know this is the third time he's missed his appointment with his probation officer, but he's got a job now and he doesn't want to do anything that will endanger his position..." In actuality, the guy is loading roofing tiles on a conveyor a couple of mornings a week, whenever he can get out of bed with that wicked hangover. Judge doesn't care. Until this guy stops drinking he's going to be caught in an eddy of life, circling the drain and collecting DUIs as though they were food stamps. Judge gives him even more probation.

"Thanks, man," he extends a hand. I've done nothing, I tell him, but he doesn't realize it's the truth (there are no MENSA recruiters scouting for potential members at the jail). I've stood up there with him and that's good enough.

So overwhelmed was the office that in just six months I was second-chairing a first degree murder trial. After a year and a half, I was promoted. First chair on a first degree murder trial. Capital Murder. Thing is, I had other cases as well. Which only meant that instead of working eleven hours a day I was up to seventeen, eighteen. More.

The process of mounting a professional defense for an accused cold-blooded killer is both mind- and labor-intensive. The pertinent case law has to be researched and copied and organized; the witness statements and depositions have to be categorized and neatly organized; the questions for examining your own witnesses have to be listed in the correct order; and the cross-examination strategy must be calculated and organized. To chip away at the credibility of the State's witnesses is one's only hope during the "guilt phase" of the trial, and usually they are most convincing and solid. But not always. Doesn't matter. Most Capital cases end in conviction.

At that point, a Public Defender's last hope for his Murder client is Life. Keeping a convicted killer out of the gas chamber is, for an assistant P.D., victory.

Employment Discrimination was a lot more fun.

After the PD's office, I went it alone. Sole Practitioner. The reasoning behind this move was simple: If I must work for an idiot, that idiot is going to be me. I'll never say that the learning curve for me wasn't huge, but my obsession with running my mouth or screwing up some other way would have cost me any firm job I had anyway. So I went solo.

I was fortunate enough to have a small office, and in front of that office was a door. On the door were the words:

Wendell W. Thorne, Esq.

Attorney and Counselor at Law

Criminal Defense – Employment Law

One day—nearly by accident—a young man entered that door, where he was met with a vacant space. A telephone and an answering machine lay in one corner on the floor. No desk, no secretary, no books, nothing. In fact, no lawyer. I was walking in from a trip to my car for files when he was walking out.

"Hi, there," I smiled.

"You the lawyer?"

"Sure am," and I put my things down on the floor. "Wendell Thorne," and I shook his hand. I waved my hand at the emptiness. "I'm just moving in; the movers should be here this evening," (the kneejerk velocity of even the whitest of lies is the practicing attorney's stock in trade). I was smiling. Truth is I had no desk or books or anything; not even a fichus. And certainly no movers.

He was Dale Toomer and he was young. "Seventeen," he'd said, when I asked.

"You know about employment stuff?"

"Yes, what's the problem?" I figured he'd been cheated out of unemployment benefits or fired for doing drugs. Nope.

"My boss is sexually harassing me..." I'm a pro, so I don't flinch. I don't move a muscle. Just listen.

Dale goes on to tell me about his 42-year-old female supervisor at the small patio furniture manufacturing shop; how she was always touching him; how she frequently said suggestive things to him; how she had left sex toys in his locker with notes signed and sealed with her lipstick; how she explained in great detail—and in front of several other employees—just what it was he was missing, and what she intended to do to him if she ever got the chance.

That wasn't all.

Dale lived with his parents and said the boss had taken to calling him at all hours of the night, usually emboldened by a fair amount of Coors Light. So often did she call that he went down to the Radio Shack and invested in one of those suction-cup listening devices, the kind you attach to the phone and plug the other end into a speaker—or a tape recorder. Dale chose the latter.

Dale's parents had just about had it, and told Dale to do something about the woman. Somebody told Dale to hire a lawyer and somebody told Dale about a former Public Defender who "dabbled" in employment law and Dale went searching for the hapless soul.

Young Dale was taller than me, maybe six-one or so, was neither heavy nor slim, and wore his hair in a bright blonde flat-top haircut. He carried a Carolina-blue baseball hat in his hands as he spoke.

"I'm gettin' tired of going in to work; I hate it. She always embarrasses me in front of the other guys. I tell her to stop callin' me, that my parents are gettin' pissed. But she don't care. Says I should move in with her and she'd 'make a man' outta me."

We were just standing there, in my empty office. I asked him how that made him feel?

"I wanna quit. Everybody at work knows; some even told lies about her 'n me. I swear, Mr. Thomas--"

"Thorne."

"Uh, Mr. Thorne, I ain't never laid a hand on her and I don't want to."

To me, it sounded like a classic case of a "hostile work environment," a threshold test for harassment.

There was a time in the law when a claim of sexual harassment had to include an allegation regarding the job itself. That is, the sex had to hinge upon either the offer of a job or promotion, or job termination for an unwilling target. Not anymore. As long as a plaintiff can show the existence of a "hostile work environment" a suit can be entertained. Our case was bolstered by the fact that this person was my client's supervisor. Our case, I felt at the time, was significantly weakened by the fact that the supervisor was a woman.

By the time of our next visit, this time in a booth at a local restaurant between the busy shifts, I'd done a little bit of research, checking to see if the appropriate statutes had ever been used in support of a man being subjected to such abuse in the workplace. And I admit, I had a hard time wrapping my head around why the kid didn't feel flattered or even go ahead and take her up on her offers. I was thinking: Mrs. Robinson. And if I was thinking it, a jury might too.

A waitress brought coffee and I used the headphones from my Walkman to listen to Dale's tapes. Dale was seated on my right and his parents across from us. I tried not to notice them staring at me.

The voice was well, slutty. The descriptions were graphic—pornographic—yet probably not more so than any progressive woman might say to her man in the privacy of their own home. But this wasn't a couple. After a while, I stopped the tapes, and looked at Dale who was not yet my client.

"Dale, I've gotta ask you a question: Are you gay?" I felt like I could talk in front of the parents since Dale had not yet retained my services.

"No, sir."

"He's got a couple of girls he dates--" began his mother, but I interrupted.

"—I don't care if he's gay, but the press will assume it and a jury may wonder, since many a young man being pursued this aggressively by an older woman would be inclined to go with it."

"Sir?"

"My name's Wendell, Dale. What?"

"She's a pig."

"Come again?

"She's huge, fat, ugly, a real slob..."

"Yeah?" I became animated. Obviously, Dale had never been as drunk as me. Either that or the boy actually had principles and standards when it came to the choices he made with the opposite sex. Kids. In any case, the young man was clearly upset and was very unhappy to be in his present situation. In other words, I believed him.

"Well, Dale, how do you want to proceed?" I looked at his parents.

In short, the lawsuit claimed violations of a variety of Federal and State statutes, established the "Hostile Working Environment" theory and basically threw the kitchen sink at both the supervisor and the Company.

Now, I know what you're thinking: What the heck does the Company have to do with all of this? Well, in a way, you're right. But in cases such as these, one allegation is that the Company—by its inaction—tolerated the behavior by a member of the management team. This allegation is also the only way to get to the company's insurance carrier, undoubtedly burdened with vast amounts of unearned income just waiting to be dispersed to the victim. And his lawyer.

Even with precious little evidence (the tapes would be inadmissible since only one party to the conversation was privy to them), Dale assured me that his fellow employees would verify his stories. Also, he had kept the locker mementos and the accompanying notes.

I asked Dale, "They got any security or surveillance cameras over there?" He smiled.

We sued for a total of $35 Million in damages.

Dale was right. This was not Anne Bancroft. When I deposed her, she did her level best to clean it up, but to no avail. She was very heavy, maybe 300 pounds, chain-smoked, couldn't help but drop a few "F" Bombs during the deposition. Her hair was several shades of auburn and short, cut close to her head like a football helmet. She wore what appeared to me to be blue-tinted contact lenses. As she answered my questions—without the benefit of an attorney—I worked to convince myself that I had never been that drunk.

I scheduled her for four hours but heard enough after two and dismissed the court reporter. Naturally she denied everything. In fact, in her version, Dale was the aggressor.

By then, I'd gotten the security images. They weren't video, but snapshots taken at ten-second intervals that, when strung together, produced a sufficiently adequate picture of the events unfolding in front of it. They were pretty good. We had two runs of Amy putting things in Dale's locker, although just what they were was not discernable in the pictures. We also had her—on four separate occasions—touching, grabbing, slapping and trying to fondle Dale's rear-end and private area. The best was when the camera caught her from behind as she tried to flash him her breasts and Dale—and several of his co-workers on the line—were literally reeling from the visage. There are some things one just does not wish to see.

I also had a caravan of witnesses from the plant, each of whom testified under oath that he or she had heard Amy proposition Dale for a number of things on several occasions. And, I had the LUDS or "Local Usage Details," from the telephone company. These records showed 88 individual telephone calls had been placed from Amy's home phone to Dale's parents' home phone as well as the times and durations. These records were excellent evidence when paired with my client's testimony and that of his parents.

In short, I had fallen into a very good case; even with my limited experience, I did not think I could lose. And even though I love to talk to juries (and fantasize about what I'd do with literally millions of dollars), I really didn't want to take a chance in court. Anything can happen in court.

I scheduled a case conference with all the other lawyers for about a month out, then got on the phone and started segregating them, feeding them my evidence and listening to them try to sound confident. Amy's lawyer was the first to budge.

"What are we going to do about this?" he asked, two weeks after I first spoke to him on the phone.

"Well," I began, "your girl's got no money, I'm sure. If she agrees to resign her position and give me the truth (which had been mostly absent in her deposition), I'll forget my idea to pass this information on to the State's Attorney (remember, Dale was only 17, a minor) and let you out, once I get satisfaction from the company."

"I'll call you," he said.

"Don't dwell on it too long," I told him. I was soooooo right and smart and I figured I'd hear from Amy's lawyer the same day.

Then, I was sure I'd hear the next day.

The following day, I could not even go to the office. I retraced my steps.

I hate waiting, and chewed my nails wondering if I'd screwed up or omitted something. Procedurally, I thought I'd done everything right. I made all the proper allegations and served everybody correctly. I'd filed in the right jurisdiction and I'd included all the pertinent Pleadings. I had compiled the evidence and taken the depositions properly, even acquired the surveillance tapes with the company's consent.

Then it hit me: I never got Dale's parents' consent! Those SOB's were going to string me up by my plums over his lack of majority. How could I have been so stupid?? How could I have overlooked the most obvious item on the checklist? I was going to have to re-file, at the very least. Moron.

On the third day, Amy's lawyer agreed to everything.

Fortunately, the lawyers for the company quickly caved in, agreed to a healthy settlement (though nothing near what we'd demanded and no, I am not allowed to tell you how much), and I became an Employment Discrimination lawyer. My fee furnished my office and I hired an assistant. I also bought a framed copy of a print by the German artist Michael Sowa called "Kohlers Schwein," which, when translated into English means "Diving Pig." Considering what I'd heard on Dale's tape recorder, I thought it to be quite apropos.

So the life of a solo practicing attorney was busy, to say the least. For me it was all-encompassing, me being an all-or-nothing kind of guy. When the kids began to come along, I had an important decision to make. What in the world would I do for a living if I walked away from the law? Naturally, I bounced my dilemma off my barber.

"You'd make a great barber," said Candy, the middle-aged, always-smiling strawberry-blonde woman who cut my hair. I had to take a beat, for when she said those words, a tidal wave of memory came flooding into my mind. I saw Dom's Barbershop and I saw myself immersed in the act of watching the barbers working. In that instant, it all made so much sense.

But I said, "I've never even combed anybody's hair. How could you possibly know that?" Admittedly, a thought regarding income briefly crossed my mind.

"Oh, that part they can teach you," Candy smiled. "You've got the personality for it."

And of course, she was right. When I got out of the chair that day, I knew I was going to be a barber. On rare occasions, a certain clarity occurs in one's mind. A flash of truth so true that—despite having never before heard it—you know it to be true. That's what happened that day. The very logic of it made perfect sense to me, even in the absence of a shred of evidence.

Occasionally the question arises of the possibility of my return to the legal profession.

Not a chance.

What I do now is the absolute antithesis of lawyering. Cutting hair is an incredibly rewarding act; it takes little time, costs little money, and the clients are almost always satisfied. Taking a mop of scraggly hair and working it into a clean, neat coif is both creative and systematic, requiring input from both sides of the brain.

So, when I tell these stories as I cut your hair and you know my brain is fully engaged in the cut, then you've got a pretty good idea of the exact body part that I'm talking out of.

The Ghost Grins

When you walk through the front door to my barbershop, it hits you. Banners and flags draped from the ceiling. The poster of Ted Williams. Teddy Ballgame. The Splendid Splinter. Look closer though, and you'll see the commemorative poster of the 1967 Impossible Dream season. Or maybe the miniature baseball bat signed by Rico Petrocelli. You may even be savvy enough to notice that the walls of the shop are painted a certain shade of green, exactly the same color as a 37-foot wall in an old ballpark in the city of Boston.

I am a Red Sox fan.

To those of you who root for another team let me also add that, more importantly, I am a Baseball fan. Like most boys, I played the game through high school, and even for a bit after. I had decent velocity on my fast ball, and even some good breaking stuff. Alas, I could not hit.

But, growing up a half-hour from Fenway Park means you are a Red Sox fan (it also usually means you're a Bruins fan and a Patriots fan and ugh a Celtics fan, but hockey isn't the same game I grew up with, football is just madness and basketball? Well, I've just broken a rule of my own by even uttering the word). Like having brown eyes, it is genetics of the geographical; it's just the way it is.

Fans of other teams are most welcome in the shop; even the band-wagoning Tampa Bay Rays fans. But if I notice you staring with pride at the panoramic poster of Dave Roberts sliding under Derrick Jeter's tag in Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, I'll know, and I'll pause for a moment of silent bonding with you. I'm not the avid lunatic, the Yankee-hating, Mets-hating fan I once was, however, and there's a story behind that.

I don't like to drop names (Kevin Costner once told me that to do so exhibited poor taste), but there came a time in 1993 when I met a man who had, years before and entirely without his knowledge, changed my life.

The man is Bill Buckner.

Unless you live on the Moon or—perhaps it's possible—don't possess the love of baseball that I do, you know who Bill Buckner is; if not, you may still know Mr. Buckner although you may not know his name.

October 25, 1986

On, a cool night in New York City, the Boston Red Sox were one out—one strike, really—away from winning the team's first World Series since 1918. They'd been here before, in '49, '67 and '75. Each of those years they came up short. Before that, in '12, '15, '16, and '18, the Red Sox owned the World Series. Couldn't be beat. Shortly after that, something happened.

During those ensuing years, (and we can talk about it in the open now) rumors abounded in New England about the existence of a sinister force. And no, I'm not talking about the Kennedys. This fear-inducing apparition was the "Curse of The Bambino," which involved a ballplayer named Ruth, his trade from the Sox to the Yankees, and the inability of the Red Sox to win a world series since his departure from the team in 1920. Ballplayers—and often their fans—can be quite superstitious.

On that October night in 1986, however, Lucy held the football and Charlie Brown convinced himself that this time—this time—Lucy would let him kick the damn thing. The Sox held a one run lead in the bottom of the ninth when Red Sox pitcher Bob Stanley threw a wild pitch, allowing the Mets' Kevin Mitchell to score from third base, tying the game. With the Mets' Ray Knight on second base, Mookie Wilson was at the plate with a full count (if you don't know what a full count is, your visa has expired). Wilson clicked a number of pitches foul, but, on the tenth pitch of the at-bat, hit a slow roller down the first base line, towards first-baseman Bill Buckner.

Buckner staggered towards the obviously easy grounder on two badly injured knees, but was unable to corral the ball, which slipped between his legs and into shallow right field. Knight, running on contact with two outs, scored easily and the Mets won that game and, two nights later, the World Series in seven games.

Like everyone else in America, I blamed Bill Buckner for the loss of the game and the loss of the World Series. Like a lot of Red Sox fans, On October 26th I found myself at Circuit City purchasing a replacement television (you see, my wife at the time dabbled in the art of ceramics, and she'd made this ash tray about the size of a pie plate with a high edge made out of ceramic dolphins happily chasing each other in a perpetual circle. As luck would have it, the ash tray was on the end table to my right as I stood in front of the sofa during the above-described miscue and, more particularly, in the hot-blooded few moments after when time stopped and a volcano erupted in my head. Before I knew it the ash tray had been moved and the living room got somewhat darker and the television was silent. Oh yeah, and there had been quite an explosion).

I stepped out of my house that night in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina and just walked around town all night. I went out to one of the fishing piers and sat, staring out over an Atlantic bright as day under a full moon. And walked. I don't remember thinking much at all, and I don't recall satisfying some inner desire or nagging pain. But somewhere in that long night there was release. I did not watch Game 7.

After holding on so tightly to the Red Sox for so many years, I let go.

Spring, 1993

Then came the night seven years later. O'Charley's on the strip in Knoxville, around 9:30. I was having a drink with my then wife (I prefer to think the dolphin ash tray incident had nothing to do with my first divorce) when in walked a friend of ours. She was with a middle-aged man, who was tan, tall and athletic with a headful of well-cropped silvery curls. And a mustache. We caught our friend's attention and waved them over.

The man introduced himself as "Bill," and, in the course of the conversation, divulged his profession as the traveling hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays minor league teams. A ballplayer. Still, given my level of inebriation and the years that had passed, he did not look familiar to me. Eventually, I had to ask.

"What's your last name?"

Stealthily, he scanned the room, first left, then right, then behind him. Looking back at me, very quietly now, he leaned in close and said, "Buckner."

I felt like an imbecile for asking. Me, a Red Sox fan since 1964. Me, the guy who could recite batting averages and ERA's for every team member for years. Me, the guy with the flying dolphins and exploding televisions because of the very man now seated to my right!!

I began to gush when Heather, my wife at the time, shushed me. When I asked for an autograph, she gave me the eyes and the face like I was insulting the man, so, as usual, I deferred and dropped the subject, and we just talked baseball.

Around 1:30, Bill picked up the tab and we went our separate ways. Once home, I exhibited the type of judgment a night's worth of alcohol renders, and called my friend in Maine.

"Hmmnllo?" after several rings (maybe too many, but who counts in that condition?).

"It'sWendellguesswhoI'vebeendrinkingwithallnight?"

On the other end, (at least I think it was the other end) a lot of nasal breathing, lip-smacking and other noises associated with semi-consciousness, a yawn and then, quietly, "Who?"

"BILL BUCKNER!"

Steve does not say "No shit?" or "Really?" or "You gotta be kidding me." In fact, he says nothing. There is a long pause. I'm thinking he's fallen back to sleep when I begin to hear those semi-conscious noises. A deep breath. A long siiggggggggghhh. Then this: "McNamara should have pulled him and Schiraldi out of that game." REM sleep to archive game analyst in sixty seconds. Yeah, he's a Red Sox fan, too.

A.D 2004

The next eleven years came and went. I really missed all the Pedro Martinez/Roger Clemens years and some of the Eckersley years and, sadly, the Wade Boggs years. I gradually slid back into my place as a Red Sox fan, albeit without all the drama (okay, with some of the drama), and grew into a somewhat reasonable man doing his level best to hold his emotions in check and to get a handle on expectation. Then, of course, 2004.

I'm not going to get into all that "Fever Pitch" stuff, because if you know what happened, you know. And if you don't, then you aren't interested in Baseball (and the Mother Ship is waiting to take you back to your home planet). Because deep into the night of October 27th, 2004, the St. Louis skyline beheld a Full Moon, and a Total Lunar Eclipse. It was my 47th birthday.

Oh yeah, and shortly before midnight, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years.

Mr. Buckner had been vindicated. More importantly, a cosmic release of 86 years of pent up emotions filled the atmosphere across America and around the world. Think I'm kidding? Facebook got nothing on Red Sox Nation.

In the midst of that supernova, I experienced a cathartic burst of clarity, and my world was brought into a focus I'd never before experienced. I looked forward and backward and saw a pathway, one at once created by me but also for me. I felt a connection to a past that I had let slip from my hands like a rope that hurt too much to hang onto. And I saw a future so thoroughly within my feeble grasp. I cried and I breathed and then—on October 28th— Chad wrote me the email that elicited the following Essay.

The Ghost Grins

I received an email from my brother shortly before seven this morning. "Sox win the Series for the first time in 86 years ON YOUR BIRTHDAY. How cool is that?" he wrote.

How cool, indeed.

Even earlier this morning, an hour or so after the Boston Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals, and not long after I lay my weary head on the pillow and closed my eyes, that same thought brought a bit of a smile to my lips, and then sleep. Not such a big deal when your birthday is late in October, but I don't believe in coincidence. In fact, it was about the same day in October eighteen years ago that "the horrible event" occurred. I'm talking about the one that led a guy named "Bill"—whom I chance met in a pub in Knoxville in 1993—to take a clearing scan right and left before he looked me in the eyes and quietly uttered his last name: "Buckner." Sigh.

But, like I said, I don't believe in coincidence. In the years after I left home, the Boston Red Sox were about the only thing—it was easier to allow myself to think so, anyway—that my Dad and I had in common. He'd call and say, "how about them Red 'Slops'?" And I'd say, "Yeah," all the while thinking, "Can't you say something meaningful to me?" Of course, in his own way, he was saying, "You're my son and I love you and can't we both go back to the beginning when all we had, all we cared about, all we needed, was baseball?" But he really didn't know how—or if it was even alright—to say that. My deepest regret is that I never told him I knew. I knew what he was trying to say. I knew The Code. I guess I figured he knew The Code, too. Probably learned it from his father.

As a result, we didn't get along well. Like the Sox, we had our own "curse": we were very much alike, our personalities and our motivators, and I suppose neither of us was quite fond of what the other had become. Or was becoming.

But still, the Sox.

When I was young, we lived in what was then the sleepy suburb of Hanover, thirty minutes towards Cape Cod from Boston. A very few times in my childhood (and sometime before the gloves came off), Dad took us to the inner sanctum, baseball's holy of holies, Fenway Park. I'll never forget walking from the darkness below out into the sunlight and the green. The grass, the Monster, all of it was so green. All the colors were brilliant, yes. The red letters on the jerseys, the colors of the Citgo sign. But the green, that's what I'll always remember. It was there in 1966, perched behind the obstructed view in the right field grandstand, where I crowned my first hero, Tony Conigliaro. I just loved the way stadium announcer Sherm Feller said his name. He hit a homer that, I swear, was still climbing as it cleared the wall in center field.

"Goodbye Mr. Spalding."

Out Of The Park.

Gone.

On August 18th, 1967, California Angels' pitcher Jack Hamilton caught Tony in the left eye and cheekbone. Some thought—as he lay motionless in the batter's box where he fell—he was dead. He wasn't. But, though no one knew it for a few more years, his career was.

Tony C's tragic, abbreviated career was followed by a series of failures, and his most untimely death at the age of 45. He actually died the same day as Malcolm Forbes, the billionaire. I really couldn't tell you much about what Forbes ever did, but I'll remember Tony C's lanky, powerful swing until my last day.

We went to Fenway twice in '67, both games with Cleveland, both losses, but we did get to see the Sox turn a triple play. On one hot day deep in August in '68, we sat in the bleachers and watched a fatigued Jim Lonborg toss two wild pitches in a row almost over the netting behind home plate. A few years later, it was Sonny Seibert deftly dispatching the Orioles with authority. I remember.

I lived and died with the Sox for twenty years. As I have said, they were often the only connection between Dad and me. I guess it was safe. As time ushered us through life, he increasingly disapproved of some of the choices I'd made in my life, or perhaps he was just preoccupied with this own. I resented his distance and inability to show me whatever it was he felt about me. To this day, though, I don't really know if it was that, or if he had just made a choice to not feel anything. His work in my life, such that it was, was done. Why waste time worrying about a son who turns his back on all you value?

At 47, he had his first major heart attack. It was July of 1969, and even though he battled his way out of that one, his health and any zest for life he might have once had slowly deteriorated for the next 30 years. Heart attacks, strokes, cancer and multiple open-heart surgeries left him bitter, weary, and a slave to health care's revolving door. To tell you the truth, I think most of him did die that summer of '69. But always, always, the Red Sox. And always, always, one game, one out, one strike short.

We went to see our last game together in July of 1989, a make-up game with the Orioles. Ellis Burks, who was recalled from Triple-A Pawtucket during the game eventually got the game-winning hit. The day was hot, and Dad was tired and in obvious pain that stole his joy the entire day. That evening, as I watched him driving, I saw his face and I knew that he was using every heartbeat just to try and survive, to maintain whatever it was he had become, whatever it was that life had made him. I decided that my sojourn home for the summer to try to make peace with Dad was in vain. He was just so whipped.

Ironically, Field of Dreams was released to theaters that summer, and a co-worker and I went to see it. I remember explaining the film to Dad; how a son who turned a youthful back on his father is, later in life, given a second chance and a different perspective on the life of his father through a miraculous baseball diamond and a whispering voice in an Iowa cornfield. I entertained the notion of taking him to see it, but his hearing was just about gone and Dad never was one able to suspend reality, let alone glean the existential message of it all. In fact, it was many years and dozens of viewings (and four kids of my own) before I myself began to fully embrace the film's message.

Dad passed away in March of 2002, a month before we learned that the "baby" my wife was carrying was actually identical twins, which in September emerged as boys. I've always believed that Dad may have had something to do with that! (Something like, "God, I've been your faithful servant despite the pain for lo these many years and haven't asked you for much; please, please give that boy of mine two sons and let's see how he likes it!"). It was also two-and-a-half years before last night, a night that eluded him his entire life.

So naturally, as I watched the Red Sox win the World Series and quietly celebrated my own 47th birthday, I thought of Dad. How, in the midst of his inadequacies as a father, he actually taught me how to be a good Daddy. If that sounds like a son's indictment or a backhanded compliment, it probably is.

But in his absence he taught me to be present. In his guarded heart and hands-off nature, he taught me to show my love and to embrace my children. In his rigid false bravado, he taught me it's okay to be vulnerable or to not have all the answers. And he taught me to hate The Code.

In the years he was on this earth, neither Dad nor his beloved Red Sox came out on top. I once thought it appropriate that this cantankerous old man who always seemed to expect the worst and almost willed his body to fall apart around him should always, like the Sox, come up short.

But then I look at the outcome last night, and to the future now fast asleep in their bedrooms as I write this, and it occurs to me that all those years, those dysfunctional seasons hammering away at the fundamentals of how to lose, just may have been an elaborate period of preparation, "spring training," for the players and fans—and the fathers and sons—yet to come.

And how cool is that?

Rock Fever

I have a customer named Tim who visits each year from the island of St. Croix, in the Unites States Virgin Islands. You've heard of them. They're America's Paradise; the Islands of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix. Vacation brochures and travel magazines tout their shimmering azure seas, their sugary beaches, the Caribbean breezes. Well, they don't lie.

During his stay, Tim meanders into the shop for a trim, maybe a shave, and each year I am dumbfounded.

"Why leave St. Croix for South Florida?"

Well, he has family here, he says, and he likes to see them once in a while, and, "I sometimes get Rock Fever."

Rock Fever is the slang term for a very real psychological disorder that plagues those who have spent too much time confined to an island, especially a tropical island. It does not matter if the island is a thousand square miles; the knowledge that solid earth disappears into endless ocean somewhere out there creates in some a sensation of being trapped. Not right away, mind you. Go to Jamaica for a week, no problem, mon. You'll have the time of your life guzzling rum and whiffing the air around you. Pristine waterfalls and snorkeling reefs teeming with marine life and all-inclusive amenities will keep you occupied. You'll think: I could live here. Maybe.

I know about Rock Fever. I lived just outside the city of Charlotte Amalie (pronounced Ah-MAL-yeah) on the island of St. Thomas for a number of months in 1977-78. I had a cushy job as the trombone player in a seven-piece dance-band-in-residence at the Frenchman's Reef Beach Resort, at the time owned by American Motor Inns. AMI was a North Carolina company specializing primarily in Holiday Inns. Frenchman's Reef, however, was a Holiday Inn such as had never been seen stateside, I can tell you. It was a world-class resort situated on Morningstar Beach and its several levels rose on a promontory high above the edge of the Caribbean Sea. When seen from a distance, the resort on the bluff conjured the image of a luxury cruise liner. I was twenty years old.

The band was comprised of several personalities, and I had joined when it made a stop at the Holiday Inn on Western Avenue in Augusta, Maine. Well, actually I auditioned there for the band's leader, a middle-aged man who brought to mind Jim Croce or Sonny Bono. The man was named Andy Dio.

Andy was a nearly fifty year-old, very fit Italian with curly stiff brown hair and Frank Zappa's mustache. He'd received his degree in music from the University of Miami and was an accomplished trumpet player. Andy loved fronting the band in a variety of 1970's leisure suits, and—craving that attention—he and his gravelly voice were bound to spout almost anything. Once, when he spotted the manager standing near the bar with his hands in his pockets he said, "I see Dave over there with his hands in his pockets. Let me ask you something, Dave, what do you think you're trying to pull?" This double entendre was always issued with Andy's hands in front of his body making a motion like he was swiftly stroking a cat.

Andy Dio was proud of many things in his life, from his Italian heritage to his significantly younger girlfriend to his outrageous elephant-style bell-bottom trousers. What made him most proud was an R&B recording he had made many years earlier (when he was "known" as "Little Andy Dio"), the title of which was "Rough and Bold." The forty-five was—I guess it was in his contract—in the jukebox of every Holiday Inn we played. I had never heard or heard of the song prior to meeting Andy, but it was obvious that he treasured that lost song almost more than his twenty-year-old, half-Penobscot girlfriend, because he would often drop in a quarter and allow it to play between band sets. I'm gonna telllll yo mama, you're so rough and bold....

Anyway, I auditioned for Andy one night near the end of the band's two-week engagement; played my trombone along with the band. Afterward, Andy wasn't sure. I'd learn later that his indecisiveness had nothing to do with the quality of my playing, but had everything to do with what he wanted more: a trombone player or a bit more cash in his own pocket at the end of the week.

"Hey, Chris," he said over coffee in the hotel dining room the next morning, "Could you come to Lennox with us for the next two-week gig?" (Okay, gotta explain the "Chris" thing. See, for a while I had a job as a six-to-midnight DJ at a local Augusta radio station, and I'd chosen the radio name "Chris Matthews" and it just seemed like I should keep it if I was going to go on the road in show business). I had no real attachments to Augusta (As luck would have it, I'd just been fired by the radio station; I chose to believe the reason lay in the recent change of ownership rather than my on-air work), and I told him "Sure," and followed another band member in my car the next morning from Augusta to Lennox, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

Andy wanted to see if I fit in with the rest of the band, a collection of personalities whose ability to gel on stage was—I reasoned after I'd met them all—truly astonishing.

The bass player was a barely-adequate musician who loved the sound of his analytic voice. It is likely he went on to be a major fan of Harry Potter and Star Trek. His name was Mike something, but the rest of the band called him "Peckerhead," sometimes even to his face.

The drummer, Mike Gornstein, was a tall and lanky, medium-dark skinned guy with a darker demeanor. Six-foot-four with a black Afro, he played okay, but it was obvious to me that this was just a job, and he never divulged what he'd rather be doing. He was the type of drummer who demanded acute focus to even keep a beat, which he did with mostly acceptable results. At times, he was a beat off.

Henry Motisko was the guitarist. Although already in possession of the nickname "Hank," he was dubbed "Bubba" by Andy. Bubba had a nice Bubba belly, a neatly-trimmed beard and a short curly perm that just covered his ears. His eyes, when one could actually see them, tended to close tightly when he laughed. His eyes were often quite red because Bubba liked his vodka. When we were in St. Thomas, Bubba could usually be found with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a quart bottle of orange soda in the other. At ten in the morning. He, too, had a raspy voice and when he played and sang I remember thinking: Terry Kath (the one-time guitarist and vocalist from Chicago who blew his brains out during a game of Russian Roulette).

I had dinner at Bubba's a couple of times, and his mom was a fantastic cook; she was all Italian but had married a Pole, and I can't say whether the resultant institution was passionate, but it was certainly delicious. Homemade pirogues; the world's greatest lasagna; peppers and sausage topped with freshly grated Romano cheese; baked pastries and fresh, high-quality cold cuts. Bubba's belly was no accident.

One of the finest keyboard players I've ever known is Lee Strumski. "Leo" had received his music degree from Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and was serious about his music.

(Most of the band's members lived in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, a melting pot of ethnicity a hundred miles west of Philly, and proximate to the Susquehanna River. In 1972, a hurricane named "Agnes" struck the area, and the banks of the great river were breached, flooding neighborhoods up to a mile away. After the waters subsided, the mixed bag of residents began the long and tiresome chore of cleaning up and rebuilding. They worked together as a community—Polish, Irish, Italian, Russian—it didn't matter; these were Americans. Pennsylvanians. They worked from early morning to late, late in the evening for months. No FEMA, no blaming the government. They saw the job and they accepted it and they did it.

After each long work day, groups of workers would assemble in the drier basements of their neighbors and eat Stromboli and homemade pizza, meat balls and egg noodles. And they would drink and tell jokes and play music from the old country, the kind of reassurance designed to get them through the disaster, and get them up the next day.

After the months had passed and the neighborhood had been restored, the little basement gathering places—the "Taverns"—didn't go away.

One day, while I was in town rehearsing for the St. Thomas trip, Lee said, "Follow me," and he donned his brown hip-length leather coat. I put on my parka and we ventured out into the Pennsylvania February. We walked a block or two around the neighborhood, then Lee peeled off between a couple of houses and around the back of one in particular. Without knocking, he lifted a bulkhead door, and we walked down a flight of steps that opened up to an underground bar and grill, of sorts.

At the bar, beer was served in ten ounce glasses and paid for with a stub from a sheet of perforated tickets Lee produced from his pocket. Liquor and wine as well. Soon, Stromboli and Cheese Steaks and Pizza emerged from the back kitchen. A pool table, jukebox and a shuffleboard table were arranged along the walls, surrounding a few tables and chairs. To me, it was a magical place and a testament to the backbone of a community).

Lee also understood that this band was a job, but always strived to perform his best. Lee complained a lot—in fact, the entire band seemed to be in a constant state of gripe—but when the lights came on it was showtime. Lee was meticulous about his appearance, making sure his dirty-blonde hair was always parted properly in the middle and shaped around his head neatly. He was a virulently intelligent man, with whom I had many philosophical conversations about literature, history and music.

As with many of us, Lee was somewhat self-destructive, his insecurities lying just beneath the surface. But he was often amiable and easy-going, until he got too wasted. Which, at least when we were in the islands, was much of the time. When sufficiently inebriated, Lee's disgust with the musical abilities of the bass player would breach the surface, and loudly at that (Peckerhead! Pecker. Peck, Peck Peck). The members of this band were colleagues, not friends. Despite our various eccentricities, we were a good, entertaining band with a vast repertoire and dedication to the music.

Gus Marini was our sax player; he joined the band just before the St. Thomas trip. Gus was a good-looking Italian guy, and a very good musician. Gus had another quality that allowed him to fit right in: he could drink pretty well during the day.

In St. Thomas, the band lived in a large concrete and stucco two-story house just up the hill from the entrance to the resort. The house was all tropical with wide-open windows and an atrium on the second floor. Early one afternoon, Gus drank too much and passed out on a bed in front of one of the open windows along the wooden deck that lead to our front door on the first floor. Naked. Well, he may have had on a tee-shirt. Devilish activity in Gus's dream-filled mind manifested itself in a hefty erection, which he unconsciously displayed to a couple of the waitresses who stopped over just to say "Hi", but ended up saying, "Hellooooo there!"

During the days in St. Thomas, we each had things we liked to do. I learned to SCUBA dive, and eventually took more than 10 trips to the wreck of The Rhone, a German mail ship that had gone aground just off the coast of Tortola during a nineteenth century hurricane. Part of the wreck was featured in the opening of the movie, "The Deep," a dreadful film redeemed only by the few scenes featuring Jacqueline Bissett in a soaking-wet white tee shirt.

On Monday, our day off, some of us, beset with a mild case of "Rock Fever," would hop the ferry at Red Hook for the twenty-minute trip over to St. John, at the time a mostly unspoiled island with deserted beaches. Usually some of the waitresses from our lounge (their day off, too) would accompany us, the casual atmosphere allowing them to enjoy the type of sun-bathing frowned upon at family-friendly Morningstar Beach.

Those were glorious times both fondly remembered and noticeably squandered; a boy that age sometimes doesn't appreciate the magnitude of such an individual opportunity as we had in St. Thomas. Besides, Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer was $5.50 a case and rum was 95 cents a fifth; together, they neatly established Functional Alcoholism as a primary life goal I found to be well within reach.

Back inside the resort were several shops, one of which specialized in selling sea shells and any imaginable souvenir—ashtrays, lamps and alien-looking creatures—that could be fashioned from them. I spent a lot of time in the shop, but not because of the nautical knick-knacks. My fascination was with the proprietor, Miss Lynn Finlay, of the Orleans, Massachusetts Finlays. A statuesque brunette with alluring features and a tractor-beam bosom, Lynn captivated me. Initially hauled in by her good looks and those deep brown eyes, I found myself drawn to the yin and yang of her personality. Lynn was at once a wild, open-minded vixen, yet a grounded woman who yearned for a home and a family.

Our individual passions for everything in life were constantly erupting in one another's face, and I suppose I was addicted to her. The taste of her fire made me feel alive, and I speculated that it was because we were both born on the same day, October 27, 1957. Scorpios. I don't usually give the astrological stuff much credence, but looking back I can still see a lot of myself in Lynn. We fought and fucked with equal amounts of intensity. As much as I cared for her, I suppose somewhere deep inside myself I knew that this was a woman who would not be mine for very long.

Sometime after I left St. Thomas, Lynn's free spirit led her to Las Vegas where she learned to deal blackjack at the MGM Grand Hotel. It was there she made the acquaintance of a gentleman twenty years her senior who would one day become a household name in men's hair restoration. They married within months.

I spoke to her, just once, some years later. She had a couple of children and a pre-nup that allowed her and the kids to spend summers in her beloved Cape Cod. Whether intentional or not, she never mentioned anything about being madly in love with her hair-plugging husband. I chose to believe that she had maintained a gut-wrenching sense of un-fulfillment or at the very least, unanswered questions about our relationship. Well, truth is I bet she barely remembered me.

In downtown Charlotte Amalie there was a little shop that rented motorcycles. Now and then some of us in the band would rent one for a day or so. They were basic bikes that cost about $25 a day, with a $50 security deposit. Gus was dating a waitress and wanted some alone time with her over at Megan's Bay. He picked her up on his rented bike, drove the switchback gravelly roads—on the left side, mind you—and found a secluded spot where, although he was not at all specific, it was generally understood that the two of them got lost in each other on the beach under a canopy of tropical splendor. When it was time to leave, they walked up the long hillside to where they'd left the bike, but it was gone. Stolen.

Perhaps they blamed one another as the two of them walked and eventually flagged down a cab back to the bike shop, where the shifty proprietor sadly informed Gus that he'd have to forfeit his deposit. On the way out of the shop, Gus's lady friend noticed a bike strikingly similar to the one they'd rented, the one that had been "stolen." Gus, who after all, was a man and therefore prone to insufficient detailed observational skills (apart from that area of a woman's torso from her chin to her navel), allowed that they all looked the same to him.

"No," she continued, "yours had that plastic part taped on just like that one," and she pointed. Gus looked. By God, it did seem somewhat familiar. He went back inside the shop.

"That bike outside looks like the one we rented," he began in an insinuating tone.

"No, mon. Dat not de same bike."

"Are you sure? Because my girlfriend seems to think that's the one and..." (Gotta step in here, because the part of the story detailing Hope's reaction to being referred to as Gus's "girlfriend" was never related to me, and the reader is therefore allowed to formulate his or her own take on the whole thing. Sorry, now back to the story...)

"Are you sure? Because my girlfriend seems to think that's the one and..."

"No, you bike stolen. Do'n know where dat one is now."

Gus was about to press the issue but changed his mind when he noticed the owner inching closer to a Louisville Slugger next to the counter. "Maybe you're right," Gus said as the two of them scurried out of the shop.

Later, when Gus related the story to the rest of us, he was still unable to say unequivocally that the bike at the shop was the same as the one he'd rented earlier in the day. "It sure looked like it," he said, shaking his head, "but who knows?"

Well, after a few weeks the sting of that incident passed over, and Gus decided to go back and rent a bike for the day. I joined him. He paid his rental and his deposit and accepted the key, this time paying somewhat more attention to the details of the rented 250 Kawasaki. I opted for a 90cc scooter.

Now, let me clarify. Gus and I were just going on a bit of a sight-seeing cruise. Regardless of what I told you earlier about Gus and the window and the waitresses, and Hope and the purpose of his last motorcycle rental, we were just going cruising. Really.

We tooled around the island for a while and ended up downtown, where we parked the bikes and walked up and down the main drag, ducking into shops for just a minute or two now and then. When we returned to our bikes, Gus's was gone.

"Son of a bitch!" Now he was really pissed.

He hopped on the back of my scooter (don't go there) and we tooled over to the bike shop where—this time he was sure—there sat his bike, parked right outside! We stormed in.

"Why'd you take back the bike?" he glared at the owner.

"What you mean, mon?" the owner innocently and quietly asked.

Gus, loudly now: "Why did you take the bike from where it was parked??"

"I don't know what you're talkin' about mon," he said, but in his eyes I saw a realization that he did not find particularly appealing. For they said: Is this the same guy I fucked a coupla months ago? Obviously, serial fraud was not his thing; you screw a tourist, they go home with an unpleasant memory and they don't come back. You screw a local, or at least a temporary local, this is the kind of thing that can happen.

Gus, pointing outside now: "That's the bike I rented, right outside, and I had it parked over on the other street and you took it back. Why?"

"That is not your bike, mon. That a different bike," now inching over to the baseball bat.

Gus ranted about the individual details, pointing them out to the owner, who, if he was at all worried that he may be in trouble, never showed it. He always calmly shook his head and said, "Different bike, mon."

Infuriated, Gus kicked the bike over as we got on the scooter to leave. Upon hitting the ground, the seat popped open and out flew Gus's rental agreement, which he had neatly placed there but forgotten. The owner's attitude visibly changed.

"See? See? There's my paper, my receipt," said Gus. "It was right under the seat!"

"You just put that there; you tryin' to rip me off, mon."

"Gus," I spoke loudly now. "Just try your key in that one."

Not a chance. "No, no, no...dat a different bike, and some keys work in many bikes," the shyster stammered as he literally lurched at the handlebars of the upended 250, still yapping as he pushed the bike out back.

I could see we were going to get nowhere, and a couple of helpers at the shop had made their way from the back repair area to out front and it was obvious that there was no winning this battle.

"Let's go, man," I said to Gus, who was busy laying out the details of his imminent anti-advertising campaign to the owner in terms that left no question about his dedication to seeing the shop go out of business. Those were our last bike rentals in St. Thomas.

Frenchman's Reef Beach Resort was expansive with several bars and lounges, the largest of which was the "Top Of The Reef" showroom where pseudo-Big Named acts played in a supper-club atmosphere such as those in the old Bing Crosby movies. The "Sound of The Platters", "The Fabulous Flamingoes" (minus a couple of the original members), the "Sound of The Drifters." I heard "Gary Puckett and the Sound of The Union Gap" was due in sometime, but never showed.

Our band, "Peace of Mind," played in the main lounge—I forget the name—which was an elegant setting, but built more for a piano bar or a duet. As you entered the lounge, the main room was pretty large, but as you moved in and turned left towards the bar, the room narrowed in an "L" shape. Immense floor-to-ceiling windows offered spectacular views of Morningstar Beach and Buck Island. The stage was on the right of the "L" in front of a smallish dance floor surrounded by a few tables. Then a walkway separated the dance floor from the bar. We set up and did a sound check. Immediately the bartenders imported from Trinidad clutched their ears and made unkind faces. We were too loud.

In fairness, they were accustomed to a keyboard player/percussion duet. Now they had a seven-piece dance band with three horns blaring in their direction and, although we always started the night with dinner-type, low-volume instrumental music, by 1 A.M. the glasses in the overhead racks were literally rocking. The lounge manager balanced the complaints of the bartenders with the record crowds—and accompanying profit generated thereby—and told the bartenders to deal with it. After all, the tips were rolling in.

So we played, the people danced, the guys in the band drank and argued, and I became contented with life in a lounge band.

On December 9, 1977, that all changed, and not in a small way.

Around nine o'clock a family of tourists entered the club, and a young woman in the group began dancing with an older, larger man, also from the group. She was absolutely beautiful; blue eyes, dazzling smile, long ringlets of auburn hair. She wore a sleeveless black top and a butt-hugging white mini-skirt. Her dance partner was her father, but she smiled at me. Within the space of half an hour, she would be head over heels in love with the trombone player. And him with her.

Honest to God, I don't know how it happened. Call it the warm St. Thomas night or the music or the calypso atmosphere, but dammit all to hell, I fell lock, stock and barrel for the girl, who said her name was Robin Black from Springfield, Virginia, and that she was 19 years old.

For the next two days, we were inseparable. She was staying at Bluebeard's Castle, a resort on the other side of Charlotte Amalie. I visited her there and she visited me at the Reef. In just 48 hours a magical metamorphosis occurred as the two of us skipped into a bright, wonderful abyss where no other was visible or welcomed.

On the day she had to leave, I was ablaze with emotion. My chest was caving in I was so broken-hearted. My breath came in gasps as we sat on one of the secluded patio decks at her hotel, where I, sobbing, told her that I loved her.

I loved her so much that after she went home, I had a brief fling with a waitress named Teresa. Also, now and then I had a chance to go out with Lynn, too. It was fun and frolic for a few weeks. I was a wanted man. But I kept thinking about Robin Black.

On New Year's Eve, Robin returned to St. Thomas and wanted to set the record straight before we went any further: She was really only 17 years old! In fact, she had just turned 17. Know what? I didn't care. I had no real direction; the wind made my choices for me.

She went home and we kept in touch.

The old cliché about all good things caught up to us. Although we played to virtually a new crowd each week, resort management decided our time had expired. After a Saturday night's work in which we practically torched the place we were so hot, Andy broke the bad news: One more week.

Perhaps it had something to do with the pace or the monotony, but I found myself ready to leave. We played from 9-2 six nights a week, and spent our days trying to enjoy the tropical vacation lifestyle. But even that had its drawbacks. The beach was nice to be around—for a while. We intermingled with the local mish-mash of ex-patriates, European globe-trotters and other misfits; sad faces on the run from the law or a spouse. Or themselves. We had free housing, free food (at the employee cafeteria, a burrow in the hotel's basement that possessed a mysterious relationship with ox tails and some kind of rice) and half-off at the bar. Even so, my meager salary rarely stretched 'til payday.

In the bosom of a highly-coveted and lush tropical splendor, I was in a rut.

I was faced with a looming dilemma. Robin, the high school senior, was asking me to come visit her in Virginia. Lynn asked me to stay in St. Thomas. I wanted to stay, even had a job if I stayed. I was a long way from home and I couldn't figure out what to do. When all the questions were at their worst, pin-balling around my brain, I could not ignore the onset of a more pressing and painful affliction: Rock Fever.

I had to go.

My vision tunneled and questions answered themselves. Bursting with newfound clarity, I took a cab to Lynn's new job location on the west side of the island, hugged her, kissed her, bade her farewell and returned to the band house to pack for the flight home. I would miss her.

On the following Sunday, we were instructed that a taxi would pick us up at the great stucco house at eight the next morning, so naturally we drank until four. Around seven, we groggily staged our gear and our belongings on the front porch of the house and waited. And waited. And waited some more. We bitched and moaned to one another. Some made phone calls. The phenomenon was unanimous: We all had Rock Fever.

By noon, we started drinking again.

Finally, at two o'clock the taxi arrived. We were drunk, pretty well anyway, but resolved to get the hell off the island.

Driving the winding way to Charlotte Amalie, I noticed Lee staring intently towards town.

"What the hell is on fire?" he said. I trained my eyes on his target: A black plume of smoke coming from somewhere either near downtown or the airport. The airport, we decided, perhaps accounting for the long delay.

But no. For as we neared downtown it became obvious that the smoke was rising from somewhere closer, somewhere near the downtown area. Driving along the waterfront, past the cruise ships, our eyes were locked on the smoke, black and billowing.

The driver turned one last corner and we were immediately confronted with what for me was evidence of a Higher Power in the universe. For there, just off the main road into Charlotte Amalie lay the smoldering remnants of a sinister enterprise.

The motorcycle shop had burned to the ground.

The taxi rocked with shouts of glee; then, slowly, all eyes turned towards Gus.

"Hey," he said, "I had nuttin' to do with that." And, even though I'm pretty sure he was innocent, it gave me great pleasure to enjoy the possibility that he had really been the arsonist.

And nobody could have blamed him.

Eventually I learned that the shop owners had been convicted of arson and attempted insurance fraud, among other charges. Outside the courthouse, the insurance company executive was quoted as saying (this is not made up): They try to rip me off, mon!

The bike shop fire was an appropriate punctuation to our stay in beautiful St. Thomas, and I viewed it as confirmation that it was time to leave. Get me off this island! was my mantra for the next hour and a half. Get me on that plane and get me outta here. We boarded the airliner, strapped in, taxied to the end of the runway, ran 'em up and took to the skies. As we ascended over the lush tropical paradise, I had to remind myself that it was February.

As I surveyed the greens of the foliage, the absolute azure blue of Megan's Bay, and the towering resort we had called home for 18 months, a terrible and overwhelming new feeling took over. Looking down from my escape pod, all my frustration and the unalterable haste to rid myself of the Rock and its cursed Fever came under immediate scrutiny. Was this dreaded Rock Fever so bad after all? Perhaps there is another cure... As I felt the airplane suck the landing gear into its belly, I could not shake the awful feeling that I had just made the most crucial blunder of my young life.

Three and a half hours later, when we touched down at Kennedy, my fear was confirmed: There were no fewer than four feet of snow on the ground and it was coming down at a record pace. Did I mention that the temperature was 19 degrees?

My Rock Fever was cured.

The band played a few gigs after we returned to the States. Soon after, I left the band and, except for Lee, never saw any of the guys again. I visited with him a couple of times when his new band came to the Washington, D.C. area, where I then lived. I even went up to Wilkes-Barre to visit him for a few days in 1982. Well, Robin and I did.

You see, Robin and I were married in August of 1979. I wore a mint green tuxedo with tails and she wore white, of course. This time, she really was 19 and I was 21.

Thirty years later we are still blissfully in love and happy. Who'd have thought that two kids might mystically collide under a star in a tropical paradise, fall madly in love and live happily ever after?

That's a song, I think. In fact, I may have written it.

And it's not true. Sorry.

You see, some of us take a highly linear pathway through life, while the rest of us meander; I'm the latter. I left Robin in 1986 for another woman. Sadly for us both, she has despised me ever since. I don't blame her for being mad, but I ponder the benefit of being mad so long. I was a real tool. Probably still am, in some ways.

Occasionally I look back the thirty or so years, back to St. Thomas, and wonder if it all actually happened. Couldn't it have been just a dream? Because I've awakened from dreams about events that seemed quite real. The clarity of such a dream leaves me with a most vivid recollection; as though I'd actually had the experience but had unconsciously made a choice to relegate it to a safe place, an island in my mind. Eventually—sometimes it takes a while—I am able to convince myself that they really _were_ just dreams.

Applying the same logic, I'm satisfied that my stay in St. Thomas did happen, that there was a time and a place and a young man. The uncertainty only arises because I don't quite recognize the young man who experienced it all, not entirely. He had much and knew little. He took for granted things of beauty and unconditional love, with little by way of experience to advise him that there are blessings that, by definition and design, cannot last forever.

Whenever I reminisce about those precious months in the islands, I discover the memories—like a hero's autograph on an old baseball—have faded even more; the young man ever distant. I cannot say for sure, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if I wrote this down on purpose, in case he's gone the next time I look back.

Two Jerks

L

iving in South Florida, a lot of my customers are avid boaters. And Fishermen. During the day on Fridays, I ask what's happening this weekend.

"Gonna take the boat out, maybe do some fishin'."

Now, I can appreciate the attraction. I can see the beauty and solace out on the water, peacefully bobbing over a good fishing hole or tied up on the beach at Egmont Key or, perhaps, Longboat. I suppose there is a lot to see out there; dolphins and sea birds on the water, barely-covered bow-riding vixens on the boats. And, I guess there has to be something to cruising the inlets at no-wake speed in search of elusive and friendly Manatees, if for no other reason than to count the propeller scars on their heads and backs. Some prefer balls-to-the-wall planing at break-neck speed, ball cap turned backwards, screaming out at the break of dawn to wrangle a live well loaded with largemouth bass. Good for them.

Many families and extended families and "families" comprised of friends often rent a pontoon platform boat large enough for parties. They'll motor out to a location, set the anchor, fire up the grill, crank up the tunes and just party. I can do that in my backyard.

There are sailboaters, too. We've got our share of wind here on the West Coast, and it sure is awesome to see a tri-maran heeling along, cutting a fine shape both in the water and above it. I watch them from the shore.

I have some customers who are just back from a tropical Caribbean cruise on one of the growing-number of regal and luxurious floating cities. Customers who would never have dreamed of taking a cruise—maybe even having gone reluctantly—return with smiles and a longer belt, eagerly anticipating their next vacation on the high seas. They tell of the beautiful rock climbing walls (viewed by them from the relative safety of the deck), and the perpetual surfing wave pools (same vantage point) and the ice skating rinks. On a Caribbean cruise ship. They talk of the casinos and the professional staff and the food—especially the food—and enthusiastically urge me: "You gotta go on one of these cruises," or "You owe it to yourself to take a cruise."

I never will. Nor will I ever venture fifty miles out into the Gulf of Mexico to snap up Grouper, Mahi-Mahi, or even a Marlin. A lover of SCUBA diving, I won't even take a boat-dive to a destination more than a mile or so out to sea.

For there is a formidable barrier dividing me from such floating luxuries: I am woefully seasick.

By the time I was seventeen, I had flown some two-hundred hours in small airplanes, never once experiencing the slightest tendency towards motion sickness. Heck, I'd even spent a number of times in small boats, both on the local lakes in Massachusetts and in the Atlantic along the coast of Maine. Nothing.

After graduation, I enlisted in the United States Coast Guard and, after basic training, chose to start my career aboard a 210-foot Cutter in New Hampshire, the USCGC Decisive.

(A decision which baffled my pals in company at basic training; I'd spent the entire time in boot camp hoping duty at a lighthouse would be available when I graduated. Since so many lighthouses were going automatic, the chances were slim that a billet at a lighthouse would even be available. As luck would have it, there was one, but it was somewhere on the Great Lakes and that seemed like an astonishingly long distance for a lighthouse to guard the rocky coast of New England, so I chose the Cutter in New Hampshire).

The day I reported to the ship was a bright, sunny winter day. I stowed my gear and went to the mess deck for chow: Lobsters, clams, fish, crabs, French fries. I ate like a madman thinking: This is awesome! (Not true; this was long before we started saying "awesome" all the time. I probably thought: This is cool.)

A little later, the ship was readying to get underway for a trip to Little Creek; Virginia, for operational readiness training. Virginia, How Cool! My training shipmate showed me the way to the Combat Information Center or "CIC" (the military loves its acronyms and abbreviations), where my duty for General Quarters or "GQ" was to write backwards or "BW" on an upright, clear Plexiglas plotter. Through my sound-powered headphones, a voice spoke and I wrote. As I practiced, the three or four other guys in CIC complimented me on my ability to write backwards. All I was going to do was keep track of surface contacts—other ships—while we navigated our way through Portsmouth Harbor to the wide-open Atlantic. Piece of cake (POC).

And it was easy—while we were tied up to the pier.

Once the lines were tossed and the ship pulled—I'm not kidding—ten feet from the pier, a quick churning began in my abdomen, sending messages up and down my spine to my brain, ears, mouth and, obviously, my eyes. The Executive Officer (XO), LCDR Crowell, took one look at me and shouted: "Gang Way To The Head!"

I flew past him and into the small head just outside the door to CIC, and reluctantly gave back my wonderful New England seafood dinner. And then some. And then some more. I convinced myself that I felt a little better, wiped my mouth and turned to leave. Turns out, I lied to myself, and quickly turned around again, doubled at the waist, and heaved. Nothing came out, but I heaved anyway.

You may have heard stories about guys who got seasick in rough weather and high seas, and you can understand that. Let me reiterate: We were ten feet from the pier. My bathtub has more waves.

When I finally felt like I could regain some composure, I went back and tried my job again. After a few seconds: Gang Way To The Head!!

When I could finally think again, my mind was screaming in astonishment What the hell is happening here?? I don't get motion sickness. It had to be the food. And although I hadn't thought much of it earlier, I remembered a distinctively foul taste from something in the lunch buffet. The clams? Yeah, it was the clams. Now I remember. Had to be the clams.

Only it wasn't the clams. Couldn't be the clams, not four days later when I was still spewing huge, almost invisible gobs of nothing over the side of the ship. Invisible because I hadn't eaten anything since that lobster dinner. Oh, that lobster dinner.

Pitch and roll merged and I sweated and I tried to drink water. My insides hurt and my outsides hurt. My vision was blurry. I tried to steer the ship while on helm duty (Gang Way To The Port Side Hatchway!), and scan the horizon for ships while on duty in the lookout perch. Relatively easy work, yet nearly impossible while huddled on the deck in the fetal position. Somebody please kill me.

How could I be motion sick on a boat but not in an airplane? I still don't know the answer to that question, but on one cruise I felt at least somewhat vindicated. Not long after getting underway, we picked up a helo, a Sikorsky HH-52A helicopter, secured it to the little flight deck and headed out. The snappy-looking pilot and the crew jumped out of the chopper and made their way below deck. Okay, we were experiencing winter seas at the time, so that's got to be considered. We'd been at sea about two hours and, yes, I'd been "feeding the fish" the whole time; I was a wreck. Still, when I descended the forward ladder and turned the corner into the head, I had to smile at the curled up bodies: All three of the enlisted air crewmen, absolutely emaciated with seasickness.

"You'll get your sea legs soon, son," the crusty old bo'sn's' mate once told me. I wanted to believe him, years of service to his credit and no doubt hundreds of other rookies in his charge. I had a feeling my condition was different, but I wanted to be wrong.

Well, I was right. Six months and four cruises on that tub and still no "sea legs."

Our mission up there in the cold, rolling, stormy North Atlantic was fisheries patrol, a hundred miles out to sea in search of ancient, rusted-out Russian trawlers overloaded with Cod. Two weeks at a time. Each time I tried, I really did, to overcome the demons of nausea. Each time I returned to the pier twenty, thirty pounds lighter. True. As soon as I hit land, I was fine. I jumped into my little car and flew to McDonald's where I dropped a five-dollar bill on the counter and said, "Fill 'er up." (A Big Mac was only eighty-nine cents then).

One time, I kid you not, we were gliding up the channel to the pier when we slowed, slowed, slower than normal, I thought. Then, we were stopped. After what seemed like a lifetime, motionless in the channel with the April morning sun moving up in the cool air, the unthinkable: We were turning around!

I heard a lot of "Eff This," and "Eff That," and "What the Eff?" mostly from my mouth. The ship's pager came to life.

"Now for the information of all hands, a distress call has been received by station Boston from a fishing vessel one-hundred and twenty-five miles to our southeast that is afire and taking on water. We have been ordered to steam to its aid."

I could practically touch the pier, we were so close. I actually gave some thought to just diving in and suffering the consequences later. Well, I did. Think about it, that is.

So, off we went, into the mouth of the cat. More puking. Less weight.

After what turned out to be my last patrol, I went to Mickey D's and then back to the ship where a message was posted. The Coast Guard was putting together a marching and concert band on Governor's Island in New York for the Bicentennial year, and asking anybody who was interested to just send in a transfer request. To me, it was like asking a guy in the electric chair if he'd like to hop out and spend the next year on a deserted island with Carrie Fisher ...

(Here my editor wrote, "Gross! Have you seen her lately?" But I was thinking Princess Leia in that outfit and those chains alongside Jabba the Hut. Makes sense now, right?).

Also, no boats.

One of the happiest days in a man's life—so I am told—is the day that he purchases his first boat. It is a primitive, masculine feeling of exhilaration, of pride, of success—exceeded only by the overwhelming joy of emancipation the day he sells it. From what I've witnessed, it is the wiser man who—loving boats being the threshold here—acquires a friend who also owns a boat. Even the most casual land-lubber observes that a lot of boat owners needn't fret over the effects of salt water on their vessels, for it is a substance with which the hulls rarely make contact. Boats are a lot like airplanes, in this regard.

Boats—cruisers, day-sailers, Bass Boats, fishing boats—seem to spend an immense amount of time out of the water (sometimes my kids will have a game as we're driving around the neighborhood: Count The Number of Yard Boats). And the ones already in the water, fastened to a slip? They don't seem to move about much. In fact, just last year the City of Bradenton set about to get a number of boats rotting away on the Manatee River condemned so officials could just get them out of the way.

One of my customers, Bill Bass (honest to God), is a retired police officer with roots in deep southern Georgia. Thickened through the middle by age and 48 years of wedded bliss, he has a head of stubborn white hair and exceedingly blue eyes. David (see, his friends call him "David," because that's his middle name and that's how he knows when it's a telemarketer on the phone) exhibits a weary resignation to life in general; after all, he's retired and living in south Florida. Like so many of my retirees, he answers one of my first questions—'Whatcha been doin'?'—the same way every time.

"Nuthin'."

"Absolutely nothing?"

"As little as I can get away with," he allows.

"Well," (it's Friday), "whatcha got planned for the weekend?"

Thoughtfully, David says, "I'll probably have some 'honey-do's', because it's too wet to go fishin'.

"So you like to go fishing, huh?" I ask.

Then, in his heavy southern drawl and in no hurry whatsoever, he told me this story:

About a year ago, I decided I wanted to get a kayak. I've been around boats my whole life and fishin' is what makes me happy and I wanted a kayak. My wife did not like the idea of a kayak, having read about their tendency to flip. She suggested a canoe. Now, to my knowledge, a canoe possesses similar stability characteristics to that of a kayak; namely not much. She figured that with a canoe we could both go out together and spend "quality time" on the lake or river.

I wanted a kayak.

Last September I bought a canoe.

Since I bought it, I have taken it out exactly once. I made the mistake of buying two life jackets; the second one is unnecessary because she did not go with me on my one excursion. But I got it discounted, so...

Now, paddling down river is no problem. Paddling up river is the problem, so I decided to save up some money and purchase a small trolling motor to get back up river. After I'd done that, I found out that in Florida a canoe does not have to be registered—unless it has a motor. Even an electric trolling motor. So, I went down to register the canoe, figuring that it couldn't be too expensive or take too long.

Now, the canoe I purchased over at Dick's was a floor model, and, because of that came with no paperwork. I figured that was no problem.

"Do you have the manufacturer's paperwork?" the nice lady at the DMV asked.

I told her I didn't, and why I didn't (here, he puts a lot of "H" sound in the word "why," as well as a clear upward inflection) suddenly thinking that my decision to purchase the floor model may not have been as smart as it seemed at the time.

"Well, I can't register it without the paperwork and the sales receipt." I no longer had the sales receipt, either, and told her so, which elicited another uneasy sigh and "Well, we'll have to charge you sales tax unless you can prove that you've already paid it," which was something in the neighborhood of seventy-nine dollars. That, along with the price of the trolling motor, the life jackets and the paddle put my investment somewhere north of five-hundred bucks.

I found that I was no longer in the mood to be cooperative, raising my voice a tad and very clearly saying what I thought of that idea. A purportedly helpful supervisor came along to assist.

"What seems to be the problem?" She smiled, but I've seen that kind of smile before. I told her what I thought of a state that could treat its citizens in such a fashion, and vowed to return with all the necessary paperwork.

I called the company that made the canoe—the one I didn't want to buy—explained my situation and they happily agreed to provide me with all the necessary paperwork. When I received the manual, I read it. I know some people don't. Apparently, the trolling motor I purchased required a transom-like structure in order to operate properly (he doesn't say "transom-like structure," he says "a built-up thingy in the back," but I thought I'd paraphrase to help the flow which, now that I've written this parenthetical is already toast, but I'll let him continue anyway). I built one and slapped it on there.

I also noted—taking into account the inherent instability of a canoe—that any items inside the canoe prior to tipping may very well end up on the bottom of the river afterward. I had an idea.

I used some nylon line and some ringlet gadgets and some Velcro and rigged a system of securing things like my fishing rod and my tackle box and my cooler to this elaborate system, which I secured to the gunwale of the canoe. I was very proud of that invention, and told my wife so.

By then I'd received a catalog from a helpful after-market company which supplied literally every potential gadget and add-on for just about any canoe. Mindful once again of a canoe's instability, I was interested to see a set of what amounted to floats or outriggers like the ones on those canoes in Hawaii that I could attach to the canoe, "dramatically improving stability," or so the ad said. Only $299. I bought 'em.

But I was chagrined (yes, he said "chagrined") to find another item in the catalog, called the "Gear Keeper," an elaborate system of securing one's gear to the canoe in the event of a capsize. I showed it to my wife and growled something about how these bastards must have been watching me while I built my own.

So now I have about a thousand dollars into a canoe that I did not even want and have only taken out one time since I've owned it. But, if this rain stops and quits sending all that runoff into the river, I may just take it out one day next week. I doubt my wife will want to go.

And this is a canoe!

Around the area where I live, you don't need a boat to go fishing, but it does help qualify the purchase of one: "Honey, don't you want me to teach the kids how to fish? Well, I've just got to have a boat for that, don't I?" People move here from up north and the first thing they want is a boat. Norm, retired from GM, bought a boat before he even bought a condo. Often retired but sometimes just uncontrollably drawn to the sun, many of the old guys love the idea of the old-fashioned barbershop, and with help from their fellow "Manufactured Home Community" neighbors, find my little place.

"Where're you from?" I ask.

"Michigan."

"Yeah? What part?"

He'll tell me and I pretend to have some idea of where he's talking about, although I've never been to Michigan and I've never been interested enough to study a map. I ought to do that.

Anyway, these customers almost always ask me about boating and I tell them I've always been an airplane kind of guy. Even as a kid I hung around the airport just hoping for a ride.

But I do add this: "Just make friends with a guy who has his own boat, you'll be happier."

They laugh and agree that what I've said is probably true.

Then they go out and buy a boat.

They're going to fish and they're going to cruise and they're going to "take the family" out in the woefully shallow Sarasota Bay to cheat death on a glorified inner tube tethered by a fifty-foot line to the stern of Their Own Boat. But who knows, maybe their idea of pure joy is shoveling money into a sea-worthy lawn ornament.

Now and then they will go out to fish. Some will even return with a good sized Grouper or a Snook, if (during season) they are lucky enough to find one within the small window of "keeper" size. Once the price tag of the trip is figured, dinner will cost about $189 a pound, but they don't mention that part. I can appreciate that.

But a vessel that floats is not a necessity when fishing Florida. In fact, I've been told there have been a number of quite large game fish caught at the various fishing piers and along the waters in and about Longboat Key. I cannot personally verify these claims because I do not fish. Oh, I have fished. Some. Like when I lived on the Outer Banks and everybody fished, particularly during the spring and fall Bluefish migration.

The Outer Banks is an archipelago of sand commonly known as "barrier islands" situated off the North Carolina coast beginning near the Virginia border and stretching southward for more than a hundred miles, hugging the coastline. At that point, the barrier islands continue to follow the coast westward for a short distance, and then they vanish. An array of bridges connects the barrier islands with one another until you arrive at Buxton, home of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse (with the black "barbershop" stripe; honest to God, that's what they call it). There, one must board a ferry, first to Ocracoke Island, and then another to the mainland near Wilmington. I know it's a long way, because I once rode in a 100-mile bike ride—a "Century" to avid riders—from Southern Shores, just north of Kitty Hawk, to Ocracoke Island (and yes, we all had to board the ferry, but that distance didn't count in the Century). The land is flat, sandy and windy, always windy. There are still places along the way that are truly described as "wilderness," desolate spots where the shore has greeted the raging Atlantic for centuries, just begging to be fished (did that sound like a fanatic fisherman? That's what I was going for).

The Bluefish (Pomatomus Saltatrix) is a migratory game fish built for speed. Sleek, long and powerful, the Bluefish's reputation is that of an indiscriminate killer with all the necessary tools. The fish is a blue/green/gray mix that comes to life in an array of brilliance underwater. I've nervously watched them schooling around me while SCUBA diving.

During the Springtime, small, immature Bluefish move in great schools up along the Atlantic Coast from Florida towards Maine and beyond for the Summer. They are like Snowbirds, minus the RV's. Once there, the Bluefish eat lots of lobsters and crabs and smelts and whatever fish they can fit into their growing mouths, lined with razor-sharp teeth. During that time they do what every creature does when it overeats: they get big. Huge. Upwards of fifteen pounds or more, although the average is about twelve. In the fall, instead of sitting on the couch drinking beer and screaming at the big screen, they all get together and swim south again. Eating all the way.

In both spring and fall, one can find a well-manicured line of folks of all ages along the water's edge of North Carolina's Outer Banks from Buxton to Corolla, standing next to at least one nine-to-ten-foot Surf Rod (often several). The handle of the rod is neatly slipped into a slightly-larger tube of white PVC piping anchored in the wet sand at what appears to be a slight but precise angle. Lines have been prepped, ready to be cast out to a place beyond the break and all eyes are watching the appropriate direction, south in spring, north in autumn.

Eventually, the eyes spot a tightly-circling gaggle of noisy gulls twenty feet above the water. Eureka. (I'm sorry; EUREKA!!). The cyclonic gaggle slowly inches down the beach like a hurricane in search of landfall. Soon, the experienced eyes will shift their focus from sky to surf, where the water will appear to be boiling. Hungry Bluefish will be in a feeding frenzy of the type seen at the Golden Corral, devouring huge schools of Menhaden in the perpetual quest for sustenance.

Every once in a while, the Menhaden, not especially wanting to be devoured, will seek refuge in the shallows. This act is folly, as the Bluefish will follow, even to the un-depths of the shoreline. A barrel-shaped wave comes in and goes out, leaving the beach littered with Menhaden—and some highly committed Blues—many no longer in possession of all of their body parts. Another barrel-shaped wave comes in and goes out, and the fish are gone. It is a piscine ballet that moves to the direction of an unseen choreographer, and it is beautiful.

Like everyone else, when the gulls and the churning water are just offshore in front of me, I stand, remove my rod from its holder, open the bail, rear back and throw. Occasionally, the line pays out in an arc that appears to have been planned. In the spring, the lure is a double-rig "Bucktail," of smaller dimensions for the immature or "Taylor" bluefish mouth. The double rigging allows one to catch the immature blues two at a time. I can think of no reason to need one, let alone two of the little fellows, but who am I to fight tradition? In the fall, it is a Gator Spoon with a treble hook for the Jose Cansecos and Rosie O'Donnells of Bluefish. Either way, lines go out and fish come in. Due to the voracious and indiscriminate appetite of the species, this type of fishing requires no skill. My inclination is to believe that most fishing is similarly demanding.

"Two jerks," said the scruffy old man in the burgundy "Ducks Unlimited" hat. I had wandered up the beach during one of the "down" times, before the Blues returned up the beach, and said "Hello" to the old guy. He was clutching a coffee mug imprinted with the words, Do I Look Like I Give A Shit?, and wore a blue windbreaker with a grey hooded sweat shirt underneath. His pants were green work pants in which someone had done an immense amount of painting. "Battleship Gray," if I'm not mistaken.

When he said those two words, I tilted my head to one side, respectfully trying to wrap it around what the crusty old fisherman had just said. As a novice I was open to any tip, but something told me that this was more. Something told me he was giving me His Secret.

Two Jerks. I'd always known about the one jerk, to set the hook. I couldn't recall ever having the opportunity to "set" a hook, and the old man's words now made me realize why: Nobody ever told me about the second jerk! Or maybe he meant that the fish taking the hook was the first jerk, while the motion to set the hook was the second jerk. The combinations were playing hop-scotch in my brain. Was there some mysterious method to this madness that had escaped me? For a moment, I was frightened to death he was going to leave me with that, "Two Jerks."

He continued. "That's all fishin' takes, two jerks."

"—Wait, I'm confused—"

He smiled, "One on each end of the line!" And then he laughed so hard he began coughing and spitting and I laughed too as I gingerly moved up the beach, suddenly unsure if the guts splattered all over the sand around him were from a fish.

Nevertheless, I am surf-casting on the Outer Banks, an activity I reverently understand to be coveted by many accomplished anglers who've not had the pleasure, and I treat it with appropriate respect.

I am pretty sure that fishing is to some as golf is to others, including middle-aged writers from Florida. I love the game. There will always be those who scour the seas for an elusive lunker as there are those who ply the fairways for the perfect round. I have observed the failure of the angler to be much less stressful for him than it is for the unsuccessful golfer, though I am not one prone to gauge my enjoyment of the game based upon the day's final score. I'd play no matter what the tally, as you might fish all day and be happy even if at the end of that day the live well holds only water.

Those who fish tell me they love the fishing part at least as much as the catching part. I can appreciate that, although an experience I had while vacationing in North Miami during Tarpon season might challenge that assertion. It was there, for a brief moment, that I witnessed the interaction of man and fish that made the act of sportfishing all very clear to me.

North Miami is but a few miles from the famous South Beach, but here you will not find nearly-naked supermodels or tanned, well-carved men in Speedos rollerblading hand in hand. Here you will find Time-Share condos and Wolfie Cohen's Rascal House and families.

On this particular sunny morning, a gaggle representing a cross-section of America was out on a long fishing pier, surf rods leaning against the pier rails, folks lackadaisically talking, drinking coffee, casually watching. Suddenly, one of the rods came alive, bent over double. People moved, one more purposefully than the others. He did not move fast, which surprised me. I would have tripped over tackle boxes and knocked people out of the way if it was my rod. But this guy just meandered over to his pole, which was doing the Cha-Cha along the rail.

When he got it in his grasp, a writhing object the size of a water heater breached the surface not fifty yards off the pier. I assumed it to be a fish, and I assumed it to be a tarpon (Okay, I knew it was tarpon season). It was huge. Graceful and glistening, he violently wrenched his head back and forth. The large fish re-entered the water, tail first, as the line went slack.

"Threw the hook," somebody said. I knew what that meant, but I found myself staring out at the now empty place where the fish had briefly suspended anyway. I swear I could still see him; no, not him, but some atmospheric disturbance in the air where he had just been. Like the fizzling light from a fireworks blast, just before the dark returns. For a time, there must have been either a quiet around me or in my head alone, because I eventually began to hear voices again. Reluctantly, I accepted that the moment was over and the Tarpon would not reappear, and I turned away.

But in that moment, when time seemed to stand still and the silvery fish danced on its tail in thin air, a primeval emotion raced through me. The pure joy of witnessing one of God's creatures in frantic battle for its very survival, it's every fiber alive with one goal—to live—was cathartic. For the first time in my life, fishing made sense.

Then I got over it.

Soon, one will not be able to fish anywhere in Florida without a fishing license, a license you will pay for. Pay for the right to fish, a primordial activity born eons ago of the need for sustenance. It is no small example of the tragedy this world has become. Everything has a price.

I told you, I don't fish. That said, the extraordinary lengths to which a society's governmental authority will go to turn a natural and blissful activity into a profit-making attraction turns my stomach. Florida looks more like a private club with each passing day. Bureaucrats who are unable to balance the checkbook—or keep their greedy hands out of the till—will always find ways to exploit the available resources. Fishing licenses, hunting licenses, parking meters at the beach and day fees at Florida's pristine, primeval natural springs. A fee to launch one's boat, a tax to build another boat ramp.

And in order to satisfy the fishing public—tourist and resident alike—restrictions on commercial fishing are placing undue burdens on family fishermen who've carved out a living in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean for generations. The regulations are in place, it is said, in order to manage the schools of game fish that still exist, to ensure a future for both professional and amateur anglers.

Truthfully, most of my customers indicate that they strictly adhere to the "catch and release" policy. And I'm not convinced that commercial fishermen are foolish enough to bite the hand that feeds them, to fish a place dry (Truthfully, a lot of my customers, when I posited this last assertion told me, "Don't be so sure."). Doesn't make sense.

But nobody ever accused any lawmaker of having sense.

No matter, the act of launching a boat rigged for a day of leisure or a month of livelihood is not going away anytime soon. Neither is the five-day eat-a-thon known as a Caribbean Cruise. Worthy endeavors, I'm sure.

But if you drive your boat along the waterfront and see me standing on the pier with a Cusano Belicoso in my hand, staring out to sea, please know that I'm not hanging around hoping for an invite. I'm not hungry to see what lies beyond the horizon. If you could see behind my Randolph Aviators, you'd recognize eyes that are plenty happy right where they are. If my lips are moving, I'm more likely to be singing Christopher Cross's Sailing than quoting Stevenson.

So don't ask me to go for a boat ride because I can't go, even if I wanted to, which I do not. And don't ask me to fish because I just don't know how, the advice from the old man in Cape Hatteras notwithstanding. I'm afraid to find out that fishing is actually more involved than "two jerks," and I don't really want to learn.

But I'll understand.

And if you choose, as some of my angling customers do, to bring me a portion of that which your hobby's labor has provided, I will be thankful and dive into it like a migrating Bluefish.

I may cook it first, though.

"Nice To Mole You"

Having grown up in New England, I became accustomed to unhappiness and disappointment at an early age (and no, I'm not talking about the Red Sox, but thanks a heap for bringing it up). Living just outside of Boston, I learned that the year consisted of about seven months of bad weather—followed by winter. I remember how our family would endure month after month after month of freezing cold and dangerous ice and snow measured in feet. Cars that would not start and, when they eventually did start, white-knuckled drives to town bouncing off hard-packed snow drifts like Mark Martin trading paint with Jeff Gordon.

Naturally I looked forward to summer, when, once in a while, we'd pile into the car and drive to the shore for the day. I know, I know. It sounds like fun. Once there—Duxbury Beach or Brant Rock or maybe even the Cape—we'd battle the chilly 20-knot winds and somehow anchor our blanket in the coarse sand, then lay out under what was described by the local meteorologists as a 'mostly sunny' sky. The plan was to warm up—forget about getting a tan—then charge into the 51-degree water to 'cool off.'

"It'll feel refreshing," Mom told me. Yeah. If by 'refreshing' she meant 'mind-numbing, heart-stopping, suck-your-stones-up-into-your-body cavity,' then yeah. Refreshing. I learned other words had an array of definitions. Like 'Sunny', 'Warm', and 'Fun'. No, summers in New England aren't much better than winters, although there is usually less snow.

When my father's health took a nose-dive, and as the cost of living in one of Boston's up-and-coming bedroom communities started to soar, Mom and Dad had a decision to make: Where shall we move? Although I was not really included in the planning phase for a move, had I been asked my opinion on the topic my answer would have been simple: Florida. Thanks to television, my life in Florida included cutoffs and no shirt, SCUBA diving all the time, traveling to school by skiff, and a pet dolphin. And, of course, no winter. To me, it seemed like a fairly easy decision.

We moved to Maine.

From at least one vantage point—and viewing the entire matter in hindsight—that decision may not have been so bad.

One of my good customers, Hal, about eighty years old from Wapakoneta, Ohio walked into the shop with his wife one day and, professional that I am, I didn't flinch. His nose was covered by a huge bandage which obliterated the entire thing. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a smattering of bandages spotting his face, neck and arms. Upon even a closer inspection, I saw a patch of hair missing just above his right temple, another square bandage affixed in its place.

I suppose I could have feigned a stupefied look or animated words of shock for his sake but, having been a barber in Florida for a number of years, I knew what had happened. I played along anyway.

"I didn't know shuffleboard was a contact sport, Hal," I smiled.

He and Shirley laughed, then Hal looked at me and uttered the word: "Dermatologist," but he said it like you would say "drug dealer."

"Skin Cancer," added Shirley. ''Doctor took off eleven places—"

"—took a huge chunk outta my nose," and here Hal pointed to the center of his face, "and my head," again, pointing to the affected area. "I dunno," he said, shaking his head.

"—burnt 'em off," Shirley got to finish her thought.

In the year 2009, few people are ignorant of the potential for damage to the skin thanks to the sun. In Southwest Florida, terms like ''basal cell carcinoma, "squamous cell carcinoma" and "melanoma" have become an everyday part of the language. But 70 years ago? Please.

"Shoot," begins one customer, ''when I was a boy, we'd spend all day out in the sun on the farm, puttin' up hay and plowin' fields-never wore no hat, never wore no shirt." Guys who've been golfing all their lives in short sleeves now spend mornings in the dermatology office receiving treatment for skin abnormalities attributable to the effects of the sun. I see guys like Hal every day. True.

Still, I had no reason to give the matter much serious thought until one day in the Summer of 2007, but the real beginning of the story goes back a couple of years before that.

My former wife, Tracy, grew up in northern New Jersey, and during her youth spent many summers on the Jersey Shore. Places I'd only heard about like Toms River and Atlantic City were her summertime stomping grounds. And, although it has to be classified as "up North," New Jersey does have its share of beautiful sunny summer days. One of Tracy's favorite things to do was lather on baby oil mixed with iodine and layout in the sun for hours on end. Every day. For weeks.

Sometime in the summer of 2005 I noticed a small mole on Tracy's back, between her shoulder blades, and mentioned it to her. Being out of her sight and often out of my sight, that was the end of it. Until the next summer, 2006.

"Hey," I told her one day while she was dressing, "that mole on your b.ack looks bigger."

"Really?" And she tried to see it in the mirror, but that was nearly impossible. I guess she thought about it a bit more, but, once again, out of sight out of mind.

Summer of 2007. "Hey, Trace, that mole looks like it's getting bigger; you should have it looked at."

Somehow, an appointment was made, a biopsy taken. A week or so later, the phone at the barbershop rang.

"Hello, His Place," I always answer the same way.

Tracy said one word: "Melanoma."

Truthfully, I didn't know that much about any cancer (I was like Fletch, "carcinoma, melanoma, some kind of 'noma"); but I figured it was unlikely that a mole about the size of a pencil eraser could be much of a problem. Turns out I was wrong.

Dr. Jeffrey Beard's office was one in a row of six one-story condo-offices, situated in a nice strand of old-growth oaks near Blake Hospital. Spanish moss hung menacingly from the ancient branches, but I chose not to give the symbolism its head. The day was bright and cheery, the sun shining. I looked up and thought: How could a thing so thoroughly delightful be so clandestinely evil? As soon as I thought it, I remembered my Cusano Belicoso, my short glass of Crown Royal, my homemade Fettuccini Alfredo. Too much of a good thing.

I'd done a bit of surfing on the net about skin cancer and melanoma, but I wouldn't say I knew what I was talking about. Still, it was a little mole.

The youngish dermatologist walked into the examining room at what I call 'Doctor Speed.' Purposeful, no-nonsense, no wasted effort. They are working on a $3,500.00 hour, but they have to make it look like the patient is important to them.

Okay, doctors. I'm not a fan of doctors. A one-time lawyer, I see right through 'em. I'm old enough to remember when my family doctor in Massachusetts, Doctor Johnson, an immigrant from the U.K came right to the house. Black bag and all. I had the measles or the mumps or some such childhood disease, and the lanky man in black jacket and grey striped vest kneeled alongside the sofa. He checked me over and asked me some questions, stood up. After he'd gathered his things he gave mother a small brown vial, dictated some instructions in his nasally accent, bid farewell and was gone.

Not today. Now doctors have no time for you. The tight schedule forced upon them thanks to skyrocketing malpractice insurance premiums keeps them humming along. They have no drug or procedure to cure your illness or vanquish your disease, are willing co-conspirators with the pharmaceutical industry in its effort to keep you drugged all the time, and have funny names that you think are difficult to pronounce until they start speaking.

That's the general rule. Then there is Dr. Jeffrey Beard (When Tracy phoned me and told me his name, I thought she said ''Baird'' and, of course, I thought of the movie Couch Trip, and said, ''Baird, I'm Baird, I'm Dr. Baird."). Dr. Beard is a wise man. Choosing the specialty of Dermatology in Southwest Florida proves it. And he is a cautious man. I would not know until sometime later how reasonable a man, but he was.

By the time I met him, he'd removed the mole from Tracy's back, along with about a quarter-sized area around it, a few millimeters deep. It was a hole, but thankfully the mole—and the cancer—was gone. Dr. Beard spoke.

"I've determined that, given the size and location of the mole itself, I'm going to refer you to Moffitt for further evaluation."

Tracy and I looked at each other. Couldn't believe what we were hearing. Like a plumber just fixed a leaky faucet and then said the entire system had to be replaced.

The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa is widely recognized as the place in Florida to get your cancer treatment. I'm not going to stand here and argue that point as I've heard some good things. What I will say, in retrospect, is that the Moffitt Cancer Center is doing an extraordinary job of marketing.

Tracy and I both felt like further evaluation and/or treatment was potentially unnecessary.

"Oh, no," Dr. Beard continued, "I'd feel much more comfortable if we knew we got it all."

I looked at Tracy and she looked at me and I knew she'd already agreed. I didn't tell her until some time after the entire procedure, but I never would have gone through it if it were me. Not that I'm some kind of courageous, macho guy. It's just that I get feelings about things, and I had a feeling that the melanoma was completely out of her system. Of course, looking back over everything that happened after that, now I'm not so sure.

The very early morning we were required to be in Tampa was a mild autumn day. Heavy traffic moved with surprising speed up 1-75. (I'd run this commute before, right after I arrived in Florida. I drove from Siesta Key off Sarasota to downtown Tampa-every day, one hour and ten minutes one way. So glad to be out of that rat race). Tracy and I had been told to arrive by 6:15 AM in order to—you guessed it—clear the Business Office. We found the hospital, situated on the campus of the University of South Florida, and drove up the long driveway, in line with all the other cancer victims. I began to feel a sense of dread. That's when I saw the Valet.

Ahead of us in line, I noticed young men hustling to cars, racing them to the parking garage, hustling back. This was a surprise. I like to be prepared for a valet. I like to be ready with my car key segregated from my other keys. I like to have the crayons and petrified French fries and the old copies of essential documents picked up before a strange young immigrant takes the wheel of my Suburban.

But a hospital with valet parking was a tremendous juxtaposition for me. I wasn't ready, but I had no time to become so. The Business Office awaited.

I watched my Suburban drive away and wondered if there was anything inside I'd need in the next eight to ten hours.

We took the revolving door into the huge three-story lobby, where Tracy and I waited our turn at the "Information Desk".

"Nice place," I said. It is. Glass and chrome and leather. Terrazzo flooring and walnut and cherry doors and trim. Big screen televisions dotted the atrium area, some for entertainment, others for information. Around the comer, a Starbucks kiosk. Or was it Barney's?

"Yeah," she replied, but I saw her scoping out the women with bald heads and the men in wheelchairs with tubes coming out from someplace inside their clothing. And the children, the children who had no good reason to be smiling, with their huge smiles. Maybe Tracy had the same feeling I had: How awful to have to work in such a place. I felt that these dedicated people—all of them—must be really special-talented, driven, and compassionate to take on such a challenge. We were next at the information desk.

"Hi," I smiled, "can you tell us where the business office is?"

The young lady with tall hair and too much makeup didn't look at us, didn't smile, didn't care. "It don't open 'til seven."

Call me picky; but I like to have an answer to the question I actually asked.

By now Tracy was unfolding her paperwork, which confirmed that the appointment with the business office was indeed for 6:15 AM. Today.

''But we have a 6:15 appointment, it says right here," and she tried to get the girl to look at the paperwork, but she never looked, only repeated, "It don't open 'til seven." When I asked again about its location, she was able to muster a half-raised arm and a pointed finger, and off we went.

Sure enough, the door to the business office was closed and the hours printed on it indicated that the helpful young woman at the info desk was right: It don't open 'til seven.

So we sat. And we waited. Remember, this was Moffit's idea. In fact, the paperwork we received indicated that a large cash deposit would likely be required. The waiting gave me time to think about the procedure, the way it was described to us.

Melanoma is a very slippery character, able to seep into places unknown or at least unseen and hide out for years before rearing its crusty black head and causing really bad stuff. A tiny mole, no bigger than a Tic-Tac, could one day lead to lung cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer and brain tumors. So stealthy a traveler is it that doctors really have no definitive answer regarding either its current whereabouts or its destination. The only course of treatment for this bugger is quite radical, according to some.

Tracy, the doctors told to us, would have a section of tissue removed from her back commensurate with the size and depth of the original mole. I say 'commensurate' because the size and depth of the tissue to be removed is in some tangential way related to the size of the mole, but what scale the doctors use is a mystery to me. Even in our previous exam, as the doctor drew on Tracy's back with a magic marker, I began to have my serious reservations about this procedure.

"It may be necessary," he said, "to remove a portion of tissue about this size," and he proceeded to draw the outline of a Wilson football on her back.

"That much?" I asked.

''Well, perhaps not, but we need to be sure we get it all." "Getting it all" is big with cancer doctors. I understand that.

When the business office eventually opened—at 7:15—the woman working in the office (really just arriving for work, with the accompanying five-minute routine of starting the coffee, hanging up the coat, starting the computer, blowing the nose, "be with you in just a minute, " putting the Slim-Fast in the half-refrigerator, checking the FAX machine, "Dale Mabry was really backed up this morning") seemed relatively perplexed regarding everything; the time for our appointment, the possibility of a cash deposit, everything.

"I don't know what to tell you," she began, ''but we always open at seven."

I shouldn't have, but I did: "But it's 7:15."

"Well, there is construction over on Bearss and I guess somebody ran into one of the barriers or something ... " I don't hear her; I've had it with the weak excuses of an American service-oriented "work" force that is lucky to even have a job.

'Well, we left early--from Bradenton--in case there was a traffic backup."

Finally, she seems to realize that we may very well have a good reason for being pissed, but by God she's not responsible for it.

"Whoever sent you that," indicating the letter, "doesn't know what they're doing."

I've got few pet peeves, but faulty noun-pronoun agreement is pretty high on the list, and God help me, my entire being is in a state of heightened awareness for this error. (Everyone has their own way of doing things; I like that restaurant; they have good French fries. I've got a good bank; they have a lot of branches. I hate working for the State; they're a bunch of idiots). Normally, I pounce on the cavalier degenerate who casually disregards this rule, but this day I'd rather not deal with the futility of shining a light on the grammatical flaw, and bite my tongue.

The unhelpful lady continued. "And how am I supposed to take a cash deposit?" I choose to regard the question as rhetorical. "We've never done that before." This is the business office, mind you.

"So what do we do?" I asked, subconsciously adding up the variety and degree of incompetence thus far, and therefore having no expectation of getting a helpful response.

"Oh, they'll bill you."

Now I can't help it. "Who's 'they'?"

She looks right at me: "Moffitt."

Tracy's procedure, performed as an outpatient, involved not only the removal of all that tissue on her back, but also something called a "Sentinel Lymph Node Survey." The process involved injecting her with a radioactive dye that flowed throughout the body via the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system in the human body is one way in which it sheds waste fluids. The theory behind the survey is that the radioactive dye will follow the path of least resistance in the body, the same pathway the cancer would use to metastasize. Once in the lymphatic system, the dye will collect in the most agreeable lymph node, in this case, under the armpit. When the doctors identify a ''hot'' lymph node or two, they are removed and biopsied.

The Moffitt Cancer Center doctors did what they said. They cut out a massive amount of skin on Tracy's back—again, about the size and shape of a deflated football—and about a half-inch deep. They then grabbed the two sides of the remaining tissue, stretched them together and joined the two halves with about thirty staples running up her spine. You feeling this?

Then doctors removed a couple of "hot" lymph nodes from under each arm and sent them to the lab. We waited. No cancer there. Good.

So now, not only does she have this huge wound on her back, but incisions under each arm. She was not comfortable. Not for a long time.

Question now is, Did they get it all? Answer: We'll never know.

When we returned to Moffitt for a follow-up, the surgeon's PA told us that the news, on its face, was good. They'd taken plenty of tissue around the tumor area (Ya think??), and the lymph survey was negative.

"So I'm out of the woods?" asked Tracy. ''Pretty much." Didn't seem to care.

"Well," Tracy was not placated, "how will we know?"

The young man in lab coat and surgical cap said this: ''When you come back with pain or discomfort in your abdomen or headaches or you're having difficulty breathing, then we'll know the cancer has metastasized to another area in your body."

"And then it'll be too late, right?"

"Oh, yeah." He sounded like a rep from the cable company or a used car salesman. "I get the warranty with this, right?"

'Oh, yeah. "

The Moffitt Cancer Center is at odds with the American Cancer Society regarding the use of a blood test for melanoma. The ACS believes the test to be a helpful, non-invasive method for tracking the movement of melanoma in the body via the circulatory system. The experts at Moffitt argue that melanoma rarely travels the body through the blood and that the test itself is inconclusive. Tracy and I thought that "rarely" did not mean "never," however we moved on, feeling we'd dodged a bullet. Maybe.

A former customer of mine named Red was a retired New York City police detective. In good shape for his age, Red had a ruddy complexion and thick red hair with touches of gray and white. After Tracy had gone through her treatment, the topic came up as I was cutting Red's hair one day in late 2007.

"I had exactly the same thing a year ago," allowed Red in his clipped New York accent. I listened as he went on to detail almost verbatim the procedure Tracy had, also at Moffitt with the exact same doctors. In fact, Red's mole was situated between his shoulder blades, nearly identical to Tracy. He, too, was given a "clean" bill of health.

Only weeks after that conversation, Red came in again, this time with a development: A spot was found on his left lung during a routine annual physical.

I saw Red two more times after that, during the first of which he indicated that he was on some type of chemotherapy, and taking life a day at a time. His positive attitude and generally satisfied outlook dominated the conversation that day. The following month, Red's little SUV pulled up front. This time, Red got out of the passenger side. He forced himself to be buoyant. His hair had begun to fall out. He was tired.

Then, Red stopped coming in.

Upon advice from Dr. Beard (he was incredulous that the doctors at Moffitt had not ordered a PET scan or referred her to an oncologist), Tracy located a local oncologist named Dr. Robert Whorf (I remembered that Red was also seeing him). Dr. Whorf would be her cancer doctor for regular follow-ups, and he immediately ordered a PET scan, which came back clean. During one of her routine exams, Tracy asked about Red

Dr. Whorf slightly lowered and slowly shook his head. ''Red didn't make it."

It was a bombshell for Tracy and me, one that finds us occasionally looking over our shoulder and wondering if the thing is gaining. Even though we're not together anymore, she's the mother of my children; it'd be nice to have her around to see 'em grow up.

There are few real sermons in this book. But this has to be one of them. Melanoma is a hateful little cuss, one that rarely goes away. These other skin issues are pain enough, but melanoma is a real killer. Since Tracy's bout, I've known at least three others who've succumbed to the cancer. So here's the sermon:

It's called "Sun Screen," and it's not too expensive. Lather it on according to the directions on the container. And for God's sake, Re-Apply After Swimming! And get a big, floppy hat. Yeah, that's right, the one that makes you look ridiculous. I have one I use when I golf, and, because I often walk the courses, whenever I do use a cart I end up banging my head on the roof of the cart when I get in because my hat's brim is too large and I don't see it. Too bad.

But I use it, because in the summer I already have my hands full worrying about the damn Red Sox; I don't need any other problems.

Is She Worth Saving?

I take exactly three days off every year. Okay, every Sunday, too. But I recognize three holidays: Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and Independence Day. I italicize the word Day in the first two to clarify that I do not take either the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve off. Lots of people do, I realize. I do not for a simple reason: I run my own business.

There was once a time in American history when shopkeepers like myself could afford themselves the luxury of luxuries in a small business: Time Off. After all, shopkeepers—small businessmen and women who run dry cleaners, diners, hair salons and car lots, and the like—have families, too. They do not live to work; rather it is the other way around. Lately, however, necessity has dictated the former for many of us. The economic realities forced upon us by an out-of-touch and uncaring batch of governmental authority—and by our careless use of unrealistically available credit—increased the pressure upon us as small businessmen, thereby increasing the amount of time we must spend at the shop in order to pay the bills.

The reasons for running one's own business vary, but usually have something to do with the ability—or lack thereof—to play well with others. Better stated, it means we don't like being told what to do; we are able to distinguish—and even name—the tasks required of us throughout the workday without "one of them college types" telling us or, worse yet, showing us.

I myself have held jobs working for others. Not all of my supervisors were idiots. But enough of them were to bring me to the eventual conclusion—right or wrong—that if I were going to work for one of these idiots, it was going to be me. So, after working for the Public Defender's office long enough, I ventured out on my own. After I got my barber's license, I worked in a shop for about two years, then went out on my own. Now I write these books and I realize that while the work product itself may be the result of my own late-night toil, the final product is really due to the influence of others—my co-workers, my clients, my family and my editor.

But for purposes of this chapter, I'm in business for myself.

The point is, when one works for himself, he does not have the full economic power of a company upon which to fall back. He hasn't the buying power of a "group" for insurance purposes. He hasn't a large credit line upon which to draw. He is lucky enough—especially in a cash business—to even have credit. He pays cash.

In that vein, he usually doesn't enjoy the perks of an employee: paid holidays, paid vacation, sick leave, free coffee, business trips for conventions and "meetings," an expense account, etc. We must go it alone.

What we do get is the responsibility of all the bills associated with the business and all the liability associated with the business, and all the decision-making associated with the business. Which, especially in the last three years, means we must must must have the doors to our business open if we are to find a way to eke out something known as—I know I've heard of this—"profit."

So I plan on working. A lot. Monday "observed" holidays? Forget about it. People are off those days; those days they might want to get a haircut. Christmas Eve? The day after Thanksgiving? Same. Every Saturday? Always.

I sound bitter, yes? Well, I'm not and I am. I'm not bitter about working those days; I'm the type of guy who likes to keep busy, and I realize that a shop has to be available to its customers, especially if it wants to keep them as clients. I recognize my job and my commitment and I enjoy it. What I am bitter about is the procession of fools who have the audacity to complain about things like working "overtime," replete with its legally-mandated time-and-a-half pay. I also find it difficult to see the downside of "having" to take two weeks' vacation—with pay—or lose it. And I just wish I could find a way to sympathize with the "unfortunate" souls who have nothing to do for half a day, yet continue to get paid for that time.

And I am bitter about those who've lost their jobs and decide that the "gravy train" of Unemployment Compensation provides incentive enough to prevent them from actually seeking out replacement employment. Again, a government that is unapologetically reckless with its citizens' tax money is bad enough; but the ranks of the unemployed are jammed with quite willing co-conspirators in this congressionally-approved larceny.

Sorry, I know a lot of you fall into one or more of these categories. Spend a few days in my shoes—for instance in the middle of August when I might cut five or six haircuts in a day's time—and then see if you can bitch about your job. And forget about the $60 or $72 I get for that day. How about sitting around all day with nothing to do, bored out of your skull, knowing full well that nobody's going to come in but you have to stay anyway.

I already told you about Billie; she couldn't sit for ten minutes without going stir-crazy.

Okay, okay. I know what you're thinking. The same thing I verbalize all the time—to my kids and my clients, and anybody else who will listen: It's my choice. You're absolutely right. It is my choice. Same as yours. And you're probably thinking about the days when I cut 25 or 30 haircuts. Those are good days, sure. I won't argue with that.

But this entire diatribe is aimed at something I think about. A lot. American Productivity. Perhaps better stated as the lack of American Productivity. Where'd that go? To find out, I believe we need to look back no further than the 1960's, when we heard stories about computers that would one day free us from the drudgery of a day's work. When tasks could be performed in milliseconds and robots could be "programmed" to obey commands, lightening our workloads. The result, we were promised, was that we'd have all the more time to enjoy the "American Dream," our own National Life of Leisure.

Problem is, that prediction came true. Now we have less time at work which should—and did for years—equate to more time for leisurely activities. In the 1960s promotional materials, we would spend our time walking in the park with our sweeties, hanging out at the lake with the family, and maybe knocking out 18 with the guys at the club. We were driving in the country, visiting Grandma and Grandpa (who'd already earned the right to do nothing every day of the rest of their lives), and maybe taking in a ball game once in a while. Well, something went haywire.

Now we are a society entirely addicted to entertainment, leisure and recreation, particularly sports, thanks to an electro-magnetic device in our homes, around which we families sit. And stare. During this time—the average of which has increased over the decades by three times—we eat. And drink. And by our example, we indoctrinate our children to do the same.

I remember—and so do many of you—when I was a boy of six or seven years old and I walked out the front door of my house around nine in the morning (in the summer) and returned twelve hours later. Nobody worried about me, because they knew I was safe. My friends and I were playing baseball in the cow pasture, or stabbing lamprey eels in the North River (with, gasp, razor sharp tridents on the end of sticks), or just exploring. We were not in somebody's house watching television, maybe because there wasn't anything on any of the three channels! But maybe we hadn't been ushered into that era yet because we were having so much fun!

We walked and we ran and we rode bicycles and we got a drink from the cranberry bog or right out of the North River itself. We had an "instant" hamburger about once a month and maybe a Coca-Cola now and then. We were slim and we were in shape and we slept like babies. Without Benadryl. Nobody had ADD or ADHD; every kid was gifted with speedy metabolism and a creative mind that had the tendency to wander off track in the midst of a grand and wonderful journey called "childhood."

No more.

In the interest of "progress," we've labeled every normal activity of many kids and lots of adults, and developed a pharmaceutical aimed at neutralizing that activity. We live mentally frenzied and physically sedate lives, then wonder why we develop problems like ulcers, obesity, diabetes and weak backs. And heart disease. And Erectile Dysfunction. Oh, how we hate erectile dysfunction.

We've gotten so lazy that we don't even make anything anymore. Even Harley-Davidson is thinking about moving out of Pennsylvania, although that's a move possibly aimed at busting up the company's union. In fact, many spare parts for Harley-Davidson motorcycles are made overseas. My mother made children's clothes for Health-Tex and Oshkosh B' Gosh. Lots of my friends' parents worked in shoe shops. Many of my customers worked for companies like IBM, Honeywell, and Kodak, manufacturing computers, copiers, typewriters and cameras.

Detroit—and the mid-West in general—used to make all of our automobiles. There were GMs, Fords and Chryslers. They were big and they guzzled gasoline and they carried our large families and we loved them. They were reasonably priced and they had their quirks and we knew how to fix them (again, not me personally, but us in general). They were manufactured with pride, American pride. No more.

Dad went to work, Mom stayed home and we kids went to school. If we screwed up in school, we were disciplined accordingly at school and, most probably, once we arrived home after school again. Not anymore. Children, not parents, are in the driver's seat. A revolving door of do-gooders gained velocity during the 1960's, and they haven't looked back. Purporting to represent the unspoken voice of children—and based largely upon the psycho-babble of "experts"—these "advocates" took their grievances to court, where progressive and "enlightened" judges were convinced and acted accordingly. Corporal punishment became an innocent victim in a world where any physical discipline of children now had a new label: Child Abuse. Parents were encouraged to trade in thousands of years of successful child-rearing techniques for more esoteric and "humane" methods. That they were largely unsuccessful was ignored by the new regime; that they represented a huge detriment to the proper development of the very children they purported to protect had yet to be determined.

A lot of people—my customers among them—are asking, What happened?

To me the answer is simple: Television.

Television provided, among many, many more things, a platform that humanized the news media, over time establishing an artificial cloak of credibility with which the media was more than willing to wrap itself. After all, in the early years the news was the news. People watching mistakenly understood that what they were seeing was two things: 1) All the news; and therefore 2) The most important news. Of course, neither is true. The time constraints placed upon all televised product by the sponsors necessitated editing of all content, which placed a person or people in the position of deciding what it would air and what could be left out. Of course it was soft censorship, but that was a new concept that no red-blooded American knew that much about, much less how it affected the masses.

People were enticed to see the "up to the minute" televised news, enabling them to know about both local and national events long before the newspaper was tossed on the doorstep the following morning. Television news came on at 6 P.M., thereby cutting short the family's dinner time and abruptly dictating a family's activities immediately after dinner (surreptitiously cutting into all that leisure time we were supposed to be having as a family).

From there on, things went downhill, family-interaction speaking. You know the drill. The News led into the game shows (my father's lineup: Peter Jennings, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy). There were variety shows boasting Stars Who Enjoyed Their Drink. My mother was certain that Jackie Gleason's teacup was full of liquor. Dean Martin staggered to keep his footing during his opening monologue. Carol Burnett pulled her ear.

Pretty soon, America was introduced to a different kind of comedy/drama television, this one with a fancy, almost military-speak name: SitCom. The Situation Comedy. Early on it was Leave It To Beaver, Ozzie & Harriet, Dick Van Dyke and Andy of Mayberry. In my day it was The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, F-Troop and Green Acres. Either way, it was comedy and drama mixed together, all of it neatly developing, suspending and resolving in a wee 22 minutes of script. The other eight minutes of the half-hour were the only reason for the other 22.

At 9:00 there was a movie, for two hours. At 11, a rehash of the 6:00 news along with the car accidents and fires that hadn't the manners to occur before six-o'clock.

And then came 11:30, and one program: The Tonight Show.

Although originally airing with host Jack Paar, I only really remember Mr. Johnny Carson. He and his oft-drunken side-kick, Ed McMahon, along with Doc Severinson and the NBC Orchestra kept us up until 1:00 A.M. and the circle was complete. Astonishingly, it took a scant bit of time to hook all of America on "the Tube."

In 2010, television has changed dramatically, but its core purpose has and never will be altered. Whatever it has to do to get the message to you—about important new pharmaceuticals or zero per-cent financing or Have you been injured?—it will do. "Reality" television, a clever antonym for what actually occurs, is now the number one type of television show. We apparently love to see other hapless souls blundering through this life, willing to prostitute themselves in front of the cameras for a few minutes of fame (and often infamy) and a few thousand dollars.

I could continue this line and talk about sports that turn supposedly grown men into lunatics, and movies that push the envelopes of our imagination, our morality and our sanity. I could talk about the block of time between the 12:00 noontime news and the 6:00 news, so-called "Daytime" television. And I could mention a thousand redundant channels on 52 inches (diagonally) of High Definition Plasma bolted to the wall with seven strategically spaced surround-sound speakers. But I won't. If you've read this far, you already know all about this. And, like the majority of Americans, you're hopelessly hooked.

Me? I had another of my catharses a little over a year ago. I was sitting on the sofa, eating a large bag of peanuts and watching the Rays and the Red Sox when something happened and the power went out. Before long, I caught a glimpse of myself in the television's black reflection sitting there watching a blank screen. Wasting time.

Because my friend Phil had already endured his prostate cancer and because I run a barbershop in South Florida—God's Green Room—I have learned some things. Number 1: None of us is getting out of here alive, and oh, by the way? That exit ain't so far off. In fact, in early 2009, four guys my age came into the shop within four weeks of each other with unfathomable news: This was their last haircut; the cancer, only recently discovered, had already won.

There are no guarantees. I'm not wasting any more time. Certainly not sitting on my duff staring at a gaggle of idiots whose job is to keep my attention long enough to get me to the commercials. And, since I tend to be an "all-or-nothing" kind of guy, even though I really like a couple of things on the old box, I choose not to watch any of it. Yeah, I watch a movie from Netflix or one I have on DVD now and then. But occasionally I'll get a glimpse of some show or game or news while I'm in a restaurant, and I'll see that I made a quality decision for myself. For my children, too, when they're with me.

I tell my customers I don't watch T.V., and, as coincidence would have it, neither do they. Not much anyway.

"Just the History channel. Maybe Discovery once in a while."

Well, if what they're saying is true, then those must be the two most popular channels on television.

Recently, the people at Nielsen—the ones that keep track of who's watching what—provided some not-so-shocking news: We watch more television than we think. That is, we tend to underestimate the amount of time we spend in front of the old gizmo by about a third.

Now you want to tell me that there is some pretty good stuff on television, even educational for children, right? Well, here's a test for you. Try to obtain the attention of a child engaged in the act of watching Spongebob or I-Carly. Let me know how that works out for you.

All kidding aside, we're hypnotized, neutralized and anesthetized by the damn thing. We allow talking heads—who I like to call "Opiniotainers"—to tell us how to think. We're convinced that, because they seem to be reading our minds and speaking our thoughts, that they are our spokespeople, rather than some entertainers whose sole goal is to keep you watching long enough to get to the advertising, end of story.

We suspend reality and drool over Catherine Bell in a snug Marine Corps officer's uniform, her lips ablaze with cherry—no, no—passion fruit gloss, and hear that velvety voice whispering a sex-emulsifying double entendre to Harm, then we get pissed because when we were Naval Aviators, well, they didn't have any officers like that running around! Then we "Friend" her on Facebook and she practically refuses to give us the time of day and then there's the whole "Restraining Order" thing and...

Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah, I remember: T.V. bad.

So I blame television because it seems to be the universal joint that drives the lives of nearly every man, woman and child in the United States. I blame it because it has usurped the common thread that is the heart of communities, severed the lanyards that tied us together as a family, and because it produces a mental atrophy even while it portends to stimulate.

In 1984, George Orwell's frighteningly accurate 1940's vision of the future, people are unwitting yet complicit targets of the ever-present Big Brother, who watches their every move. It appears as if Orwell had it right, if exactly backwards. We are all Big Brother (which, as I understand it, is the irrational title of one of the more popular "reality" shows), watching one another, waiting for somebody to slip up.

And staring at the television provides one more benefit: One hasn't any time to gaze at a mirror.

While we find it necessary to trespass into the lives of others we take guarded comfort in the lie that it's not an aversion of our eyes from ourselves. The act of self-examination occupies a back burner that's barely on simmer. We often feel like we're judging ourselves as compared to others, but what we're actually achieving is something much less invasive, and a lot more trivial. We are superficial, and we desperately need to be included in some kind of group, even as we demand our individuality. We speak to one another of atrocities near and far, of which we are reminded everyday via a media with a single agenda: Sell.

We go to college, not because we yearn for knowledge, but for the much less valuable benefit of preparing ourselves for a career, any career, without really knowing what it is we're getting into. We need another person in our lives to share the load—a real burden, if done to current standards—of life. Regardless of how we get there, we all want the same thing: The American Dream, whatever that even is anymore. It has a price because, in our twisted sense of value, it has value.

And so, amidst the backdrop of an artificial world once created as diversion from the stress of life—entertainment—and in the face of depleting morality and an ever-increasing definition of boundary (in fact, many of the definitions have changed), I ask this question: Is she (America) worth saving?

Forget the government; it will always be laced with mealy-mouthed weaklings who are madly in love with themselves; who will spend not an iota of time in personal deliberation prior to selling out the constituency for the momentary pleasuring of infantile desires or, worse, for an illicit, immoral and even un-American income stream.

Forget also the corporations. Cursed with a passion for money and cloaked with governmental protection, corporations press on. And although they are comprised of people, it is humanity they lack. Maybe you are employed by one. You know, unless you have been "read into" the strike mission, what I'm talking about. You, too, are a slave to the salary, the benefits, the comfort of the familiar.

If it were just the government and the corporations, well, it'd be easy to answer my question in the negative. Hell no! America's not worth saving.

But for years—my upbringing years and the twenty or so hence—America could always count on her People to cast the deciding vote. The People knew about the government, about the corporations. They knew and they knew enough common sense to, by their sheer numbers, offset the governmental/corporate influence.

So the real question, in light of the devolution I've encapsulated above, is do the People still tip the scales? I wonder...

As I was thinking about this topic—on my mind for a decade, it seems—I re-read David Gibbs' eye-popping "Fighting For Dear Life," the behind-the-scenes account of the battle to save Terri Schiavo. Ms. Schiavo, you may recall, was the young Florida woman—living, breathing, heart-beating on its own—who'd suffered brain damage due to a lack of oxygen and, even though she had no signs of being "terminal," was living in a hospice center in Tampa. Her husband, Michael, spent fifteen years in and out of both state and federal court in an astonishingly committed quest to have Terri killed. A nation went slack-jawed when a judge eventually ordered the only instrument of "life support"—her feeding tube—removed. Fifteen days later, Terri died.

I'd done a fair amount of research into Terri's life for my first book, but simply was not prepared for the trip on which Mr. Gibbs took me. It frightened me, and made me mad. It unsettled me and re-directed my thought process. And it made me think of the Biblical story of Lot. Terri Schiavo's life was worth saving. Yes, she was brain-damaged, and sure, she was disabled. But those two adjectives could almost assuredly describe a third of America's citizens, and here I'm not talking about those who've been clinically diagnosed, if you know what I mean.

And so I must conclude that if there be but one "righteous" person still fighting the tide of popular culture; still waging a private war against an uncaring and careless throng of mentally-lazy slouches; still carrying a modicum of hope I often struggle to find, then perhaps America is worth saving.

Perhaps we stand at the threshold of a new era in the history of our great and checkered nation. I say "new," but in reality, what our country really needs isn't revolution but restoration. A step back towards the path from which we've strayed too far. Our people must once-again realize that the surrendering of a responsibility is also the surrendering of a right, and that there are sacrifices that must be made in order to regain our great nation.

We must suspend the erratic and disappointing trek towards that which we have not, and spend time gratefully acknowledging the beauty and value of that which we have.

And remember, when you do get a day off, cherish it, enjoy it and be thankful. And for heaven's sake, come to the barbershop and get a haircut; I'm probably open anyway.

Don't Worry,

It'll Grow Back

Driving south along the River Road from Augusta, Maine's capitol city, you will arrive shortly in the "city" of Hollowell, a drive-through village that time has somehow overlooked. I say "somehow" but the truth is that the residents seem to like it that way. The main street is lined with cobblestone sidewalks that front a staggering number—given the diminutive size of the city itself—of antique stores. Oh, you may see a pawn shop or a diner, but the prevalent business is antiquities. It was in this village almost fifty years ago that I recall having my first haircut. For as long as anyone can remember, Dominique Blodgett had been the proprietor of Dom's Barbershop. Dom was a fixture in Hollowell. Slightly built with angular features and horned-rimmed glasses (Think WKRP in Cincinnati's Les Nessman), Dom occupied the first chair, right up front where he could observe daily life through the plate-glass storefront window. Dom seemed to enjoy his work, but his passion was racing dog sleds.

Each winter, Dom took at least a couple of weeks off to go to Northern Maine or Northern New York or even Canada to mush his team of dogs through bitter cold and mountains of snow, and I guess he was pretty good at it. When one hears the term "dog sleds," the thought Huskies or Malamutes usually comes to mind. No. Dom's sled was dragged through the frozen tundra by a world-class team of...beagles. Yes, beagles. I know, I know, that seems a bit unlikely. I thought so at the time. It's yet another of the bizarre twists one often encounters while exploring the curious lives of the people of northern New England.

Dom's was one of those old-fashioned shops situated in a storefront, replete with revolving Barber pole and a cowbell on the door designed to awaken the barbers when a customer arrived (as if the creaking old oaken floorboards were not sufficient). Dom's, like all the street-level shops on the east side of Main Street, was supported by a maze of erector-set stilting due to the terrain, which steeply fell toward the Kennebec River behind.

The shop was typical, with a neat line of burgundy-leathered, white porcelain-based barber chairs fronting a back bar of mirrors and shelves with neatly-organized clippers and shears. Each had the ever-present cylindrical glass container of blue Barbicide, a Sanek neck strip dispenser and a small vacuum cleaner.

A large glass cabinet sat in the middle of the shop, next to a counter supporting a huge ancient cash register (although Hollowell had virtually no crime, nobody was going to heft this dinosaur). Inside the glass cabinet was an array of creams and tonics—with names like Wildroot and Brylcream and Vitalis—as well as some old barber tools, paying homage to one of the greatest \- though not oldest - professions.

The rear of the shop was organized with some waiting chairs and a table or two, a magazine rack and an enormous aquarium. After my first visit, I'd always look forward to my next one, a lot because of that aquarium. Just watching it was almost as fascinating as observing the neatly-dressed gentlemen plying their trade behind the chairs.

Waiting my turn in the chair, I did watch. Dressed in identical mustard-colored barber jackets, these otherwise non-descript men worked methodically and mostly quietly over a cushion of Sinatra and Louis Prima. Watching them deftly combing, clippering and scissoring unkempt mops into clean and sharp tapers one after another was, for me, hypnotic.

When nearly finished, the barber would release the red striped cape from around the neck, and rearrange the neck strip such that it tucked into the back of the collar, draping down a bit on the back. Pressing a button on the top of a small machine situated on the shelf behind, he would fill his hand with a small amount of warm lather and apply it to the back of the neck, the sideburns, and around the ears of the customer. Then, removing a straight-edged razor from the top pocket of his jacket with one hand, he took the end of a well-worn leather strop attached to the chair with the other and worked the razor to a fine edge. With steady hands, the barber carefully shaved the outline area, putting the necessary finishing touch on his work of art. I never even blinked.

When it was my turn—I must have been four years old—the barber located a booster seat from beneath his station. The seat was made mostly of a steel frame, but had a matching burgundy cushion in the middle. I thought how neat it was that the seat fit snugly into the barber chair. I sat, was draped with the cape and a white paper strip was wrapped around my neck, pulled snug and fastened tight with a clip the barber withdrew from his pocket.

I got a "summer" cut. Called a "burr" or a "crew cut" in many parts of the country, in New England we simply called it a "whiffle." Either way, he removed most of the nearly-white hair on my head with a clipper. Afterward, he fired up his vacuum and ran it over my head. I remember thinking that he was trying to remove the rest of my hair with this machine. Then he was done. No lather, no shave, not for a four-year-old.

My uncle said, "Don't worry, it'll grow back."

Over the years, and while visiting my grandmother or aunts and uncles, I'd have my hair cut at Dom's once in a while. Eventually, I did have my neck and ears outline shaved, and that experience was so perfect. I could hear the tiny, juvenile whiskers being shaved clean and I just loved it. When it was over, I couldn't stop rubbing the back of my neck just to let my hand feel the smooth.

In 2002, my young family and I trekked to New England for a visit. By then, I was just really starting my barber career and felt a primal call to Dom's. Not much had changed. The aquarium was gone, but the old barber chairs were the same. The cowbell rang and the floors creaked. The glass cabinet was still there, as well as the old cash register.

Dom, of course, had passed away. But there was a picture on the wall of him on his 100th birthday, standing behind that first chair and cutting hair.

"I had my first haircut here," I told one of the barbers. He smiled and said something, but it was obvious he'd heard that one. A lot.

Back at my own shop, I occasionally have a guy in my chair that asks, "Whatever did they do with all those pictures of the kids they had on the wall over there?" He points to the corner now occupied by a poster of Ted Williams. Don, the previous owner, made it a habit to take photographs of every tyke's first haircut.

And I have to tell them this: "When I took over the shop, Don donated them to the Oneco Museum," which is funny because Oneco is but a wide place in the road now decorated with "Buy Here – Pay Here" car dealers, pawn shops and mobile taco stands. While it may truly enjoy a rich history, a "museum" is really unnecessary.

"The 'Oneco Museum'? Where's that?" Which is a fair response for two reasons: One, it is in an old house that had been donated for such a purpose just down the street from my shop and Two, it's not there anymore. A large flat-bed truck had come one day—after the museum had "officially" closed—and drove the entire building away. Where? I honestly do not know. Which is a problem because one day Don, who's a real trouper and has danced cheek-to-cheek with the Grim Reaper enough to recognize his cologne, came by the shop to ask about the pictures.

I told him all I knew. "Why do you ask?"

He'd wanted to move them to a new museum in downtown Bradenton, adding, "They go with the shop, those pictures. They're yours." That surprised me since I just figured Don wanted to add a bit of punctuation to his barbering career in Oneco by making the pictures available to her citizens. I was wrong.

Don left that day with my promise to hunt down the pictures and get them back. As of this writing, I have not been successful. And believe me, I've tried.

This being southwest Florida, there are few residents who can be fully described as "locals" or "natives." But those of my customers who've spent their entire lives in this little borough are at a loss for where to look.

Don finally succumbed to one or another of his myriad ailments, and passed away in February of 2010. I hope I can find those pictures one day.

In 2002 when I took over the shop, there were three other barbers working for Don. One was a Cuban immigrant named Miguel but everybody called him "Mike." Mike, they all tell me, was a flamboyant personality whose primary focus in life was to find a way to quietly return to his beloved homeland—and assassinate Fidel Castro. I'm told that if one wanted to get a rise out of Mike all that was required was to mention the name of the evil dictator. Don had already told me that Mike was looking forward to having a new shop owner and had agreed to stay on and continue working in the shop. That was a relief, since the shop was busy and I was told Mike was very popular.

When I first met Mike, I had an idea of what to expect. My favorite movie is called Wrestling Ernest Hemingway. Never mind, you never saw it. But it has to be one of the best pictures ever made. In it, Robert Duvall plays a retired Cuban barber and he nailed it.

Mike was cutting a customer's hair and I was listening. Seventy-four years-old, he said (some of these immigrants are a bit unsure of their own age) with gray and thinning hair, dark features and horn-rimmed bifocals, Mike's smile was warming. I looked forward to working with him.

The other barber was a man named Gene, 80 years even. Gene had spent the last two decades of his life battling some government contractor he'd worked for in his youth, who—Gene was certain—had exposed him to the radiation that lead to esophageal cancer and the stainless steel cylinder hanging around his neck, the one he had to place against his throat in order to speak. Gene had worked as a barber in a number of shops in the area, and had a pretty good reputation for his work.

Gene shared my love of airplanes, having even built an experimental aircraft in his younger days. He was slender and tall, with a nice head of wavy white hair, glasses, and the ever-present "electro larynx." He always seemed to be smiling or laughing. Gene, too, was committed to staying on. Good.

The crew was in place. Now I just had to tell Jody.

It was a Thursday when I informed Jody—a Master Barber and the shop owner who gave me my first chance—that a week from Saturday would be my last day, since I'd told Don I'd take over a week from Monday. To say she took it hard would be like calling Osama Bin Laden "difficult." She immediately became agitated, paced inside and out of the store, got on the phone and called her husband who advised her to release me immediately, which she did.

Now this was November and, back then, back when Florida used to get a lot more winter residents, that meant business. I simply could not go that long without income. I called Don.

Don didn't hesitate. "Bring your stuff on over and you can start here today."

Next, I called my friend Craig Roberts, who had a van. I had a barber chair to move out.

"I'll be there in a jiffy," he said.

When Jody saw others dropping everything and coming to my aid, her senses returned. Although she didn't offer to allow me to work my notice, it was obvious that she had come to the realization that she'd acted too swiftly. Jody is a good businesswoman who, while not immune to expressing her emotions, rarely allows them to make her decisions for her. This time was different

Craig came and we loaded up. Jody, now back to her normal, caring self, gave me a hug and wished me good luck.

"It didn't have to be this way, Jody," I told her, and her expression said: I know it. She gave me a used Latherizer—that electric gizmo that creates warm shaving lather— as a going-away present.

So I started work in my new shop on a Friday. Just Gene and me, since it was Mike's day off. The day went splendidly and I immediately felt comfortable in my new digs. Customers flowed in, greeted me, the newcomer, with ease. Gene was methodically working and joking in his robotic voice. I looked the place over—a lot—and made mental notes of the changes I wanted to make. I'd brought along my Latherizer and some straight razors. Jody's shop was only one of two or three in the entire area that still shaved around the neckline and sideburns, and I even provided full face shaves. The first time I used it, Gene piped up.

"These guys around here ain't gonna go for that," through the throat cylinder. He was serious.

The human tendency to appreciate the comfortable and the familiar crystallizes with age. Every organization—whether it's General Motors or a family or an old-fashioned barbershop—is made up of people who are programmed to resist change. That's only natural. Change brings the unknown and people naturally fear the unknown (wish more people would have been fearful during the 2008 Presidential campaign; we're paying for that "bravery" now). Fear paralyzes motivation. Gene's comment served to remind me of this phenomenon. He'd made it seem like he was trying to be helpful, filling me in on the shop's clientele and their own resistance to change. I didn't think so.

In my brief experience, men young and old very much appreciated the outline shave; old men understand that a nice taper haircut isn't truly finished without it. The younger guys like me remembered their childhoods, when the service was performed routinely, and vowed their return to the shop because of it.

Saturday was great. Real busy, the three of us—Gene, Mike and myself—buzzing along steadily, clipping hair and telling jokes. I found myself relaxing.

At the end of that Saturday, Mike smiled and shook my hand vigorously.

"I'm looking forward to working with you here, and it's nice that a Christian bought Don's shop." He'd obviously felt what I did, the camaraderie, the jocularity, the comfortable.

On Monday, Don came to the shop early with Mike's key.

"Mike's decided to retire," he told me flatly.

"What??"

"Said he wished you the best, but decided he wanted to spend more time with his family." I didn't believe that for a minute, but what could I say? In time I would come to understand why. Since Don had been through a number of illnesses that kept him away from the shop for long periods of time as of late, Mike had somehow allowed himself to be unofficially elevated to "shop owner," a title casually bestowed upon him by a number of his clients. It was a development Mike had not vociferously discouraged. Under a new real shop owner, Mike's status would naturally descend, and I don't think his pride would have allowed that to happen.

Gene had elected to take a few days off, and Monday brought with it one of the most happy developments in my career, and my life. Jerry Sturwold.

When I met Jerry, he was 70 years old, only he didn't know that. Spry, energetic and full of warmth, grace and laughter, Jerry had me thinking, at age 45: I hope I have that fire when I'm his age. A native of Dayton, Ohio (okay, not Dayton exactly. West Milton, north of Dayton), Jerry talked a lot about the mid-West, having had the honor of cutting Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt's hair. Then there was the customer who ultimately changed his life when he offered Jerry an outside sales job in wholesale tires.

It was the '70s and Jerry saw that the old-fashioned barbershop was slowly being replaced by those heathen unisex salons. He observed guys' hair growing longer, and he was smart enough to see how that was going to change things. So Jerry accepted the new job and had spent the last nineteen years of his (he thought) working life plying the south- and central-Ohio area, making friends and selling America's finest tires to service stations and repair shops.

Like everyone else who meets him, I liked Jerry immediately. Of medium height with a lithe build, Jerry's head is capped with wavy, snow-white hair. His wisdom-filled blue eyes peer through conservative spectacles, and his broad and disarming smile resides just below a white mustache, which he trims every other day. He spoke of his love of ballroom dancing, the financial markets (of which he is significantly knowledgeable), and his beloved Ohio. And Jerry talked about Rita, his raven-haired soul-mate until 1995, when she succumbed to breast cancer.

Jerry's favorite story about Rita had to do with her 50th birthday. The two of them had gotten all gussied up and were driving to dinner when they noticed a commotion involving the police. They'd even called in a helicopter. Jerry insisted they stop to take a look.

"Don't you dare stop this car, Jerry," argued Rita. "You don't want to get in the way."

"Just for a minute, dear," Jerry pulled over.

Rita was about to crawl under the seat when the chopper pilot walked toward their car, reached down on Rita's side and opened her door. Rita was frantic.

"Mrs. Sturwold?"

Somehow Rita stammered a Yes.

"Right this way, ma'am," the pilot said to Rita, who swiveled her head in the direction of her husband, who was smiling with his whole face.

"Happy birthday," he said, as the pilot lead the two of them to the helo, strapped them in and flew them to Cincinnati for an unforgettable dinner. You have to be some kind of admired to get that kind of treatment. If you knew Jerry, it wouldn't surprise you in the least.

Jerry eventually remarried his ballroom dance partner, Joanne Faberes, and the two share a loving companionship that brought them to Florida after retirement.

But Jerry wasn't content to rock away the winter of his life. He acquired his Florida barber license and was hired on to work a couple of days a week in Don's barbershop.

Those first few days I was with him, I watched Jerry work. Meticulous, detailed and artful, I realized Don was right when he said Jerry was a "good shear man." Jerry took a little longer to complete a cut, but was delighted with my enthusiasm towards old-fashioned barbering; the straight razor and the usual shoulder massage I give every client re-ignited both Jerry's love for the craft and his hope for the future. We clicked.

Good thing, too.

After a few days off, Gene returned from a short vacation to Daytona. He was standing in the middle of a darkened shop when I arrived.

"Hi Gene," I said.

"What the hell is this shit??" He spoke loudly, well, as loudly as possible through his electro larynx, pointing at the price board, which I had altered slightly in his absence.

"What?" I wasn't sure what he was talking about.

"Women's Hair Cut??"

"Well, I have a lot of women clients and—"

"This is a Man's barbershop—" His face reddened.

I was incredulous. "I'm not asking you to do any women's cuts."

"That's not the point. This has always been a man's barbershop and I ain't gonna work in a place with no damn women!"

I'm a lawyer, and I have an argument. "What about the moms who bring in their kids, or the wives who come in with their husbands?"

But it was futile. Gene was just looking for a way out, same as Mike. He packed up and took his things to the car; came back just long enough to slap his key in my hand. Bye, Gene.

It was Thursday and Jerry only worked Monday through Wednesday, so that meant I was alone. I did my best and eventually placed a call to Jerry and he was happy to help. Made the best of the whole situation.

Still, I needed another guy.

John, a slender and likeable guy with dirty-blonde hair, mustache and goatee, and what appeared to be tons of experience answered the ad. After we talked a while, John wanted to set the record straight.

"I'm a recovering alcoholic and I go to about three to four meetings a week." A/A Meetings, he meant.

I appreciated the honesty and vowed to make this new opportunity for him work. This was Monday, the week of Thanksgiving.

Friday morning, I got a phone call, collect. Manatee County Jail. John.

"I got arrested for domestic with my girlfriend," he began, insisting that it was a mutual battle in which he, the man, was hauled away. I believed that. I'd seen enough of these scenarios to know that, regardless of who the aggressor is, the man gets a night's stay courtesy of the county. (That's because it's almost always the man who is the aggressor. Almost.).

But I could not shake the one thought that loomed in my criminal defense lawyer's mind: You don't beat up your girlfriend when you're sober.

I refused to bail him out or hold his job. Couldn't.

The next guy was black. Personally, I didn't care. He was a slight, well-dressed, well-groomed guy named Samuel, and yes, he reminded me of Sammy Davis, Jr. Wavy slicked back hair, neat little mustache, black nylon eyeglasses. He was personable and well-spoken. I liked him.

However, I began to worry that my customers—many of whom display a Confederate flag in lieu of a front license plate on their pickups—might not see in Samuel what I did. I'm no racist but I thought that, given the location of my shop, many of my new customers might not be able to say that. They are Florida Crackers, with a rich and long-standing tradition that goes back before the Civil War. Moron that I am, I pictured a mass boycott of my new shop, and chose not to hire Samuel.

Within a day or two, I was completely sickened with my decision, my misplaced values and myself. I called Samuel back.

When I told him why I hadn't hired him, he was understanding and asked me not to beat myself up over it. He could see that I had been in a conundrum and wanted to let me know that he appreciated my honesty.

"Hey, man," he said, "there's assholes of every color out here." Like so many people to whom I don't give enough credit, he summed it up nicely. I put him in the second chair. Ultimately, my personal quagmire had been unnecessary; to these guys, Samuel was just another barber, nothing else.

A week or so later, Samuel came to work with a request. Could I do without him for an hour or so at lunch so he could go pay a traffic ticket? Of course.

But it was no ordinary traffic ticket, not when the hour or so turned into two, then three, then a phone call.

"Man, this judge wants me to pay all $990 today or he's gonna put me in jail."

"Samuel, what did you do?"

He didn't want to get into it, but asked, as John had, if I could give him the money up front. When you have your own business people think you're Rockefeller.

"I can't, Samuel. I'm sorry." I was.

Samuel's wife came in a day or two later to pick up his things, and said Samuel would be away for a few weeks. I told her I just couldn't hold his job, and she acted as if she already knew that. She smiled when she left. She loved her husband.

I went through a couple more people, but nobody fit.

By mid-January, I was beginning to lose hope for getting the right person.

Enter Christina Hopkins. Everybody in the shop watched her approach the door thinking: Is she coming in here??

"Hi, are you Wendell?" Big, toothy smile and an attitude to match it.

I guess I said "Yes."

"Well, Sandy sent me here, said you might need a barber." Sandy was the woman who ran the barber college I attended. I'd alerted her to my plight and requested her assistance with my search for just the right barber.

"Tina" was a woman. "A barber, not a cosmetologist," she said. Uh-huh.

In the State of Florida, professionals who perform hair services are divided into two categories and two licenses: Barber and Cosmetologist. Barber and Cosmetology students follow a nearly identical path to licensure. Every Barber and Cosmo student learns every facet of hair care, including the use of chemicals like hair color, permanent waving and straightening, hair-setting, skin care, all the cuts, everything. The singular difference is that Barbers learn face shaving and Cosmetologists learn nail care. That's it. (On the Florida State Barber's Written Exam, the only question regarding face-shaving was this: What is one item to consider when performing a shave service? Answer: The Barber should take measures to prevent bad breath. Honest to God).

That said, those students who learn barbering seem to understand the use of clippers as well as shears over comb much more than their counterparts. And while both men and women take cosmetology, most barber candidates—at least in Florida—are men. Tina was not a man.

She sat in a waiting chair and we talked while I worked, thankful for the array of mirrors that allowed me to indirectly ogle. In short, Tina was a magnificently beautiful creature. Blonde, big blue eyes, nice skin. Her smile was captivating and her wit quick. She wore a nice pair of jeans and a black satin blouse with three-quarter sleeves and buttons that were simply agonizing against the strain of her bosom. She said she had a son who was nine months old, which didn't surprise me.

She spoke confidently and intelligently, explaining she would be willing to work as much as needed. I wanted to be sure that her son would not have to be in daycare, as I would not hire her under such circumstances.

"My parents will look after him when I'm working." Good.

As we spoke, the shop began to fill.

"Tina, how would you feel about taking a customer or two?" I asked, pointing at Jerry's chair. I was pretty sure Jerry wouldn't mind her using his tools.

"Absolutely," and she jumped up.

I watched her work. She was the first of the several candidates who had it. From the way she draped to the cut to the conversation to the shave, she was the real deal. Nice work. She did two haircuts and if she had been a man or an unattractive woman, she'd have still gotten the job immediately (I say this to dissuade any of you who think her appearance got her the job. It did not. But it didn't suck that she was a bombshell, either).

For a little over two years, we had the perfect team. Jerry, Tina and I gelled together. Tina brought in a ton of young male customers, Jerry had his geezers and I had the rest. We cut and styled men, women and kids' hair, and Tina and I did face shaving. Things were good.

Then Tina fucked the whole thing up. Met a nice man who had a chain of businesses and traveled a lot. Wanted her with him. And she wanted to go. Bye, Tina.

This was February, the busy season for us. I was worried we would not be able to get along without her, so I looked at a couple more barbers. We made it through that season with a sampler platter of hair professionals.

Carl was a retired GM toolmaker who eventually left the shop because he "wasn't getting paid enough for the hours I'm putting in." No doubt. All of my GM retiree clients have nothing but scorn for the lack of productivity they witnessed—but did not participate in themselves—during their tenure with the automaker. Along with some outrageous benefits, receiving eight hours pay for five hours of work is the norm. Not in my shop.

Tonya was a cosmetologist who ran a salon in which I was a partner. She is a professional stylist and an honest, hardworking employee. She gave me a couple of days a week during that time. My clients enjoyed her work.

Bob was a snowbird and a decent barber. He watched his investments like a hawk and had about two stories to tell. After the sixtieth time hearing them, I couldn't take it anymore.

Billie was funny. About 42 years old, Billie had the long straight hair and complexion of a much younger woman, presumably to woo the much younger men she dated. Billie's full-time job was with the Transportation Security Agency. She worked diligently to thwart potential terrorists attempting to enter the air travel system from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport. When I wondered aloud how secure such a small airport needed to be, she reminded me that some of the 9/11 Terrorists entered through Portland, Maine.

Billie's only drawback—and it happens to a lot of hair pros—was that she could not handle "down" time. In our business, all but the very busiest salons and stylists must deal with down time, time in which there are no customers. Tonya did Jumbles and Word Finds, and read 16th Century Romance novels. Jerry was always glued to the financial trade magazines. I paced and read, and devoured Phillies Blunts.

Billie, once the rush was over, usually around two o'clock, would pace for a minute, glance at the newspaper, and sit down with a heavy sigh.

"Well, I guess that's it? I guess I'll head out, okay?"

No patience, perhaps transferred via osmosis from her cache of boy toys. Soon Billie was gone, too.

After the winter we'd had, I decided to do my best for the summer. I was concerned that it would be difficult to find anybody who could fit with Jerry and me the following season, but put that out of my mind until later in the summer.

I could have had no idea that by October of 2006, my business would be down by half. By October of 2008, I'd lost nearly seventy per-cent of my clients due to the Great Recession.

The southwest coast of Florida is not the east coast or even Orlando. There is little industry, virtually no light manufacturing, no banking or financial centers. Nothing.

Only tourism and new home construction.

Tourism is a touchy business. One year, Bradenton was named one of the best places in the United States to retire. The next we fought a losing battle with Red Tide (Red tides are caused by the explosive growth and accumulation of certain microscopic algae in coastal waters. These "blooms" kill fish by the thousands, which release a noxious, ammonia-like gas that hovers over the shoreline and keeps folks off the beaches. For Weeks.). Escalating property values brought high taxes that forced many beach businesses and hospitality providers to jack up their rates to unattractive levels. One Easter Sunday a couple of years ago, rival gangs from the Tampa area decided to use Bradenton Beach for a smack down; three people were killed.

So tourism in our area is always a question mark.

New home construction stopped in October of 2006 as if somebody had thrown a switch. Thousands of tradesman—many working as independents or off the books in some other way—just stopped working; many had been my clients. Thankfully for them, most were able to move to New Orleans or Texas to assist in Hurricane cleanup. Others simply went wherever there was work: Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, New York, California. My business floundered.

Don't worry, it'll grow back.

Now the landscape in and around Sarasota and Bradenton is dotted with partially-constructed homes, left in various states of completion as if all the workers had been Raptured. 15,000 newly constructed homes remain unoccupied. The once-perpetual influx of new bodies to Florida stopped. In fact, Florida's population is actually decreasing for the first time in 100 years ((that sound you hear is Florida writer and the Everglades' best friend Carl Hiaasen purring like a Florida Panther (Puma concolor)).

The service jobs went away. Restaurants, dry cleaners, hair salons, car repair shops, lawn services, pest control. Gone.

Then the professionals: insurance and real estate agents, title companies, appraisers. Even some lawyers went out of business.

Then medium and small companies began round after round of layoffs. Chris Craft, Donzi, and Wellcraft Boats closed up or went to skeleton crews. Moved north, thanks to the Manatee County Commission's decision not to consider tax breaks for these world-renowned marine manufacturers. Fixtures like Circuit City and Mel's Diner went belly up. Even Dunkin Donuts. Both of 'em. Closed. Late in 2009, DeSears Appliances, a Bradenton stalwart for 62 years, permanently closed. People wondered if the county's major employers—Tropicana Juice and Beall's department stores—could be next.

Once jobs went, foreclosures soared. The ranks of the unemployed bloated. Those who had taken advantage of skyrocketing valuations on their homes and had re-financed found themselves underwater as property values plummeted. Many just walked away.

As a result, today I work mostly alone, with Dan Mattson helping on Saturday (until he wins the Powerball, gives me half, and moves to Hawaii). Alone, in a once-thriving old-fashioned gentlemen's barbershop with three barbers cutting maybe fifty or sixty haircuts a day, slashed to an average of around 16 or 17. I know I'm not the only oyster in the stew; many of you are on the brink of a major financial meltdown, if you haven't been ruined already.

Don't worry, it'll grow back.

The government recently said that things are looking up. To me, that's like Britney Spears saying that making slutty videos is "just not my thing."

When I consider the future, I think about the difficulties faced by the barbers and barbershops of old. I figure there were times when they too worried about what lay around the next corner. They lived in an America fraught with social change and financial insecurities. But they also had the singular value that has always distinguished America and Americans from everybody else: Hope.

Don't worry, it'll grow back.

Today, I too have hope. I am at once optimistic and pragmatic, with wisdom that tells me that no problem is ever as great as it first seems. I owe a debt of gratitude to those people—some included here and the many more who are not—who have influenced me and every day help me winnow away life's insignificant chaff in a small-town barbershop.

There will come a day when I will relinquish my position at His Place Barber & Grooming Shop. I'll release it into the hopefully capable hands of another, who will oversee the next chapter in its perpetual life.

At that moment, I will no longer have any say in its future. I will have to understand that it is entirely out of my hands. Although I should have some reservations about that, I don't. In my mind I keep hearing the words that disarm the negative emotions and empower me.

Don't worry, it'll grow back.

Ellenton, Florida

October, 2010
About The Author

Wendell Whitney Thorne is a barber who owns and operates his own old-fashioned gentleman's barbershop in Oneco, a suburb of Bradenton, Florida. A former newspaper columnist, attorney and aviator, Mr. Thorne enjoys traveling, playing guitar and writing songs, but is happiest when spending time with his family. This is his second published work, and readers are encouraged to have a look at "An Elephant in the Living Room – Is It Too Late To 'Kill All The Lawyers'?", a candid and refreshing look at lawyers and the legal system in The United States.

www.wendellthorne.com

 Crazy as it sounds Buckner, in an interview with an ESPN reporter on October 7, 1986, eighteen days before his infamous error, had this to say: "The worst nightmare is letting the winning run score on a ground ball going through your legs."

 It took many years and a lot of thoughtful, rational analysis, but the truth of the matter is that Bill Buckner—or any individual, really—could never be solely responsible for a loss (okay, maybe a pitcher, but even then his offense probably provided no run support).

 Actually, Steve—even in his semi-consciousness—was right. The manager, John McNamara, was foolish to leave Buckner in the game; he was not in the lineup for his defensive skills. "Billy Buck" was a hitter and a damn good hitter at that. With the Red Sox holding a 2-run lead going into the bottom of the tenth inning, McNamara should have—as he had done many times during the season—substituted Dave Stapleton for Buckner as a defensive replacement at first base. And even if Buckner could have somehow run the ball down, pitcher Bob Stanley made no effort to cover first base.

 You should see this movie, btw.

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