Crutch: (n) a staff to assist a lame person in walking

Granted sexual energy, stamina and maybe the best physical appearance one ever sports…

The age of sixteen might seem to be the highlight of one’s life.

That is, if it were not accompanied by such stupidity.

I liked Kevin. I think Kevin liked me. We had been friends since elementary school.

But when he was sixteen years old, he broke his leg.

He was out with a bunch of friends, sledding on a snowy day, and failed to notice that his sleigh was going particularly fast and he was unable to stop from crashing into a wall.

It was a clean break.

Matter of fact, he went right to the doctor and had a cast put on (back in the day when such contraptions were humongous, resembling modern art).

Kevin was not part of the very popular crowd–but on any Friday night when a party was being planned, he was also not on the “don’t invite at any cost” list.

Then something strange happened.

His accident occurred on a Saturday, so he showed up at school on Monday, his leg in a cast, on crutches.

At first there was an outpouring of sympathy.

But then, a strange anthropology sprouted in our herd. All the other sixteen-year-old kids began acting aloof to Kevin. Maybe it was because he was always trailing us, hopping along on his crutches. (Or because we grew up in a small, provincial community and the kids thought the broken leg might be contagious.)

Whatever the cause, by the time Kevin completed his seven-week rehabilitation and returned to us wearing two shoes, he had become an outcast.

He tried desperately to return to his normal acceptable position, but invitations to parties went away.

I tried to befriend him–but suffering in the throes of adolescent insanity myself, I also retreated.

It didn’t get better when he was seventeen and it didn’t get better when he was eighteen.

That seven-week period when our comrade had a broken leg, giving us a visual of himself on crutches, sealed his image for the balance of high school.

It was so bizarre.

Kevin tried everything possible to re-establish himself. He tried out for the football team, chorus and the school play. It didn’t make any difference.

Yet I thought it was a phenomenon of being a shortsighted teenager until I grew up and realized that expressing weakness or needing a crutch of any type in the presence of your fellow-humans traps you in a box that is very difficult to escape.

So what is the best advice?

Stay away from a crutch.

Which probably means you should stop breaking your legs.


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Crouching: (v) stooping or bending low.



I must be candid with you.








“You’re chubby. You’ll make a great catcher.”


But I was willing to listen.




But again, I was willing to try.



My knees kept hurting.

I got a cramp in my thigh.

I was always falling over onto my side.



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Croquet: (n) a game played by knocking wooden balls through metal wickets with mallets.

I was totally astounded that somehow or another, with the passing of years and obvious wrangling of internal forgetfulness, I had wiped the word “croquet” from my mind as a therapeutic solution.

Because when I suddenly heard it, some horrible memories flooded my mind.

Yes, when I was a boy—a young boy—my parents decided to buy me a croquet set to play in our back yard.

I am not dedicated enough to the writing of this essay to gamble my fragile psyche by going into too much detail about the game.

Let me put it this way:

Croquet was obviously conceived by someone who only had two or three distinct abilities, and wanted to showcase them in a single gaming effort, knowing that others might certainly not have any of the predispositions to survive the damn game at all.

A wooden mallet hitting wooden balls, which must travel on grass and go through little wire tunnels called wickets that are suspended in the soil, and in doing so, step by step reaching the holy peg you must hit with your ball to make you the winner.

With football you get a touchdown.

Baseball, a home run or at least a hit.

Basketball? Swish. Two points.

Croquet? A wooden ball that barely rolls over grass through a wire container several times over to end up supposedly victoriously banging against a wood rod.

Not only is there no payoff, but the amount of frustration that goes into the process is downright demeaning.

I played with it two times—once because my parents stood over me on my birthday and made me, and the second time was when a younger cousin came to visit who thought he was so smart, and I thought surely I could defeat him at this ridiculous endeavor.

I was so pitiful at it that he beat me.

I will now try to retreat back into my sanctuary of disremembering, hoping that the word “croquet” never comes up again, and I won’t have to relive the horror of wooden mallets, wooden balls, metal frameworks and a winning peg.

I just want you all to appreciate that I went through this today just for you.

You are loved.

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County: (n) a part of a state

Sometimes I’m baffled, and even amused, by the things I remember.

For some reason my brain favors certain topics or bits and pieces of trifle that float by, to retain, as if memorizing a secret code during wartime.

For instance, the other day, I realized I could sing my entire high school Alma Mater. So you will know that I’m not some sort of sentimental weirdo, I had funny wisdom on words that begin with a Cnot thought about that song since I was sitting in the bleachers after the last football game we lost.

But there it was—word-for-word, tone-for-tone, syllable-for-syllable, and would you believe?—concluding with a burst of emotion.

It was bizarre.

I also can remember my telephone number from when I was a young boy (but have to look on my cell phone to recite my present one.)

My social security number is embroiled in my brain as if terrified to leave, under fear of governmental punishment.

And for some reason unknown to me, I remember that I grew up in Delaware County.

I don’t know why I remember that.

Maybe it’s because the county seat of Delaware County was a town called Delaware. (Now, isn’t that so original?)

And I probably only traveled to Delaware a half-a-dozen times in my youthful life, but I can tell you the names of the two high schools that served the community.

It is so wacky.

I now need a woman with a British accent to give me directions on where to go, while simultaneously my brain protects the trivial that has no pursuit.

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Concession: (n) something that is granted

A few obvious but still needfully shared concessions:

  4. Talent is overrated, leaving creativity orphaned.
  7. Church does not make people better. Just pious.

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Mr. Kringle's Tales...26 Stories 'Til Christmas

(click the elephant to see what he’s reading!)

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Clef: (n) a sign placed at the beginning of a musical staff to determine the pitch of the notes.

Back in the day when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue, if a young man wanted to be a seafaring fellow, he had to sign up on one of the boats and stay on it throughout its journey, so at the end of the process, if he survived all the perils and diseases, he could be
considered a grizzled, rugged seaman.

Although the analogy may be a poor fit, such a journey was mine with music.

I signed up to travel the sea of notes and time signatures, but after three years of practicing my piano, I decided it was “girly-girl” and I quit in favor of a football helmet and a mouthpiece.

Yet I never lost interest in the instrument. I especially found it conducive to wooing young ladies, who were more impressed with someone who was tuneful than someone who could tackle.

Here was my problem: since I didn’t complete the journey on the “Good Ship Music” and learn all the information and comprehend the significance of each and every clef, I sometimes found myself temporarily appearing inadequate. I learned to exaggerate and lie.

So when my musical companion showed up twenty-two years ago, to join me in the construction of original compositions, I was quickly exposed by this lady with a Master’s in Music, to be less-than-adept at both terminology and technology.

I had to come clean.

I had to explain to her that I could read the notes, but when my right hand and right eye tried to join with my left hand and left eye to play both bass and treble clefs, I suddenly developed a severe case of “fumbleitis.”

Because I was honest, she was very merciful. She let me pace myself at a realistic rate based upon my true ability.

And like the young man who got on the ship to sail the Seven Seas, who decided to stay on at the first port because he favored the local rum over the ocean run, I, too, have to admit my lack of tenacity.

But because I hung around, listened, observed and learned–and was blessed to be in the presence of a really patient partner–it now appears that I have a good understanding of the working end of a clef.


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Clean: (adj) uncontaminated and pure; innocent.

I didn’t take my first shower until I was in junior high school.

Our house had a bathtub. I remember, as a boy, sitting in that tub until my skin started to prune up. This told me two things: first, I had been in the water too long. But secondly, there was a chance I was clean.

But the first time I stepped into that shower after junior high school football practice, I realized I had never gotten the back of my neck clean sitting in that tub.

Matter of fact, a friend standing nearby, who should have been minding his own business, saw that there were little streams of dirt flowing down my backside.

He thought this was hilarious.

Being one who liked to share his joy, he pointed it out to all the nearby fellows showering. I was embarrassed.

I tried to explain that I was a bather, not a “shower-er,” but that sounded even worse.

I scrubbed the back of my neck the very best I could, went out, changed clothes and left as quickly as possible.

I grew up a lot that one afternoon, because I realized that just because we think we’re clean doesn’t mean that every place on us–or in us–has been cleansed.

Sometimes it takes a shower hitting us at just the right place to expose hidden dirt.

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