September 3: Foundling Home, Shirley Temple, Linda Gregg, "The Resurrection," Adventures of Stickman

He thought about that crisp afternoon, years before, when the sky had opened and the world had seemed full of goodness, its meaning still baffling him . . . He remembered how, in the foundling home, the nuns gathered the children around a Christmas tree, and that one of the nuns had read aloud from a book:  "And behold there was a star, a beacon in the night.  And from the east there came angels and kings to worship the newborn son of God."

Ives becomes nostalgic for his childhood near the end of the novel, after he has found peace regarding his son's death.  He is no longer angry or grief-stricken.  He even thinks back to his time as an orphan in a foundling home wistfully, after years of feeling unwanted and abandoned.  Ives has reached an age where he looks back with fondness on many things that used to cause him heartbreack and pain.

At some point in life, everyone becomes nostalgic for the past.  I have been thinking about my daughter's first day of kindergarten.  At the time, my life was in great turmoil.  My wife and I were separated, and I was living the life of a single parent.  I did everything to make my daughter's life happy.  On her first day of school, I dropped her off with her Disney princess backpack.  She toddled into the classroom, looking incredibly small and vulnerable.

I remember going home that morning and baking my daughter's favorite cookies:  oatmeal butterscotch.  I put them on a plate, placed them on a table near her chair in the living room, and counted down the hours until I could pick her up.

Yes, at the time I felt like my world was falling apart.  Just getting up in the morning was a great chore.  But I still wish I could have my little kindergartner back, instead of my 14-year-old ninth grader.  We used to be best buds.  She used to think I was cool.  Now, I am simply the reason for much eye rolling and sighing.

Nostalgia is a strange thing.  It makes painful memories seem not so painful, and it makes the good times seem like Shirley Temple movies, where everybody is crying and hugging and tapdancing at the end.

Saint Marty misses his Little Princess.

The Resurrection

by:  Linda Gregg

Let the tower in your city burn. Let the steps
to the shadowed building by the lake burn
even though it is made of stone. Let the lion
house burn so that the roaring and burning
will be heard together. Let the old, poor,
wooden house where I lived go up in flames, even though
you returned and sat on the steps that led
up to where we used to exist. Let it all burn,
not to destroy them, but to give them the life
my life gives to them now. To make them flare
as they do in me, bright and hot, bright and burning.

Adventures of STICKMAN

August 22: Hollywood, the Secret Goldfish, Piece of Mind About Disspointment

...He's got a lot of dough, now. He didn't use to.  He used to be just a regular writer, when he was home.  He wrote this terrific book of short  stories, The Secret Goldfish, in case you never heard of him.  The best one in it was "The Secret Goldfish."  It was about this little kid that wouldn't let anybody look at his goldfish because he'd bought it with his own money.  It killed me.  Now he's out in Hollywood, D. B., being a prostitute.  If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies.  Don't even mention them to me.

For Holden, Hollywood represents everything that's fake in the world, and his brother, D. B., who used to be a great writer, is a part of the whole phony factory that is the movie industry.  Holden is disappointed with D. B. because D. B. has sold out.  In fact, The Catcher in the Rye is simply a novel about Holden's disappointments, from big ones (his brother Allie's death) to little ones (his date with Sally).

I'm sorry to disappoint you, my disciples, today.  I had every intention of writing a review of a really wonderful chapbook of poems I recently acquired.  I am not writing a book review this evening.  I don't have the energy for it.  Instead, I want to talk a little about disappointment.

Life is full of disappointments.  You don't always get the biggest piece of pizza, and gas prices at the pump rarely go down.  The biggest disappointments in life, however, always come from the people you love and trust the most.  D. B. really disappoints Holden with his career choice.  The people you care about are not supposed to let you down.  They're supposed to support you, help you, uphold you, and not do anything to jeopardize their spot on the pedestal they're on.

Today, a person I care about a great deal really disappointed me.  I was so angry that I had to go for a run when I got home.  A long, hot run.  It didn't help.  Even as I was taking my shower afterward, I was still fuming.

I'm not going to go into detail, but let's just say it involves work, a vacation, and this person making the statement, "Well, Marty's just going to have to miss his son's first day of kindergarten."  If I were a woman and my child was entering kindergarten, I know I wouldn't be in this situation.  For some reason, it's important that mothers are at home for first days of school, but it's OK for fathers to miss them.  Fathers have to work.  Fathers don't nurture.  Fathers provide.

Well, this father has always been at home to get his kids on the bus on the first day of school.  I haven't missed a school program or concert, ever.  And now a person I care about a great deal is telling me, "Sorry, buddy, you gotta work."

I'm really disappointed tonight with this person.  She's never been this thoughtless and self-centered before.  And I'm disappointed with the stereotype that mothers are more important than fathers when it comes to important events in kids' lives.  Fathers can be just as sensitive, caring, and supportive as mothers.

I will be at home on my son's first day of kindergarten.  I won't miss it.

And the person responsible for all this turmoil can simply suck my big toe.  (I was going to say "bite my ass," but I'm classier than that.)

And that's a piece of Saint Marty's mind.

Dads rock