My Three Moms

After reading the title of the blog you may be silently humming the hip little ditty to the sixties sitcom starring Fred MacMurray. But this blog is not about a man who is raising three sons with Uncle Charlie. It’s more akin to The Terminator movies. It’s about a woman who keeps taking hits but keeps getting up. The Mom-inator.

Mom #1 was born in 1933. She became Mom #2 in May of 1986. She evolved into Mom #3 in 2008 (or thereabouts). It gets fuzzy. Mom #2 was a transitional mom. Mom #3 has Alzheimer’s.

I love all three.

Mom-inator #1

Mom #1 was the mom that raised me. I’m approaching fifty and she’s the one that, in my opinion, made me who I am today. She was born on a farm in Minnesota; she’s one of eleven children. How can I describe Mom #1? Think June Cleaver with a beer and a cigarette (a Virginia Slim) wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt. She’s had a very eventful life.

She was married in 1950. In 1959, Mom #1 had to watch her second son (her fourth child) suffer from leukemia. She had to see him in his casket. She watched as they lowered him into the ground. Mom #1 was extremely independent. Resilient. Loving but incredibly intense. Tough. Protective. Distant at times. She cooked with lard, Crisco, Parkay, and bacon grease without batting an eye. She taught me how to drive the car into the garage at 30 MPH and stop before coming out of the other end. (Ok. It wasn’t THAT fast, but it was faster than it should have been!) The worst thing you could ever give her was flowers – they were a waste of money in her opinion. She hated chocolate. If she weighed ninety pounds soaking wet I would have been amazed. My dad used to say that she didn’t need a bra – just two Band-aids. She was hard working and hard drinking. She was a ball of stress and energy and could never relax if her life depended on it. She worried about anything and everything. She had high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Mom #1′s Wedding Day – 1950

Growing up, she was the smallest person on her high school basketball team and her brother gave her the nickname “Squirt.” Many people still don’t know her real name – Helen. She was, and still is, Squirt to almost everyone.

Since I was her baby, the relationship I had (and have) between all of my Moms is very different from what my brothers and sisters (there are five of us) had. This is something my sisters, to this day, will NOT let me forget. It wasn’t until all of the other kids left home and I had her all to myself that Mom #1 showed her true colors and I really got to know her for the incredible woman she was (and is).

According to the doctor who saved her 53 years later, the defect that created Mom #2 was present the day Mom #1 was born.

Mom-inator #2

The defect that Mom #1 was born with reared its despicable head in May of 1986 – a very large cranial aneurism. A blood vessel in her brain had turned into a balloon and was pressing against her brain. If it burst, she’d die. If it started to leak, she’d likely die.

The doctor who saved her life called her his miracle. She only had a 10% chance of living through the nightmare. If she did live, they told us she had an 85% chance of being permanently disabled – she’d be in a constant vegetative state. To this day I find it ironic that a few years after saving her life, her doctor died of the exact same thing while playing racquetball.

She wasn’t in a vegetative state.

Mom #2 lived.

She was, after all, The Mom-inator.

In late 1986, after six months in the hospital, in ICU, and rehab, Mom #2 came home. A year later she was back to work. Two years later, her husband of forty years (my father) was diagnosed with lung cancer. She nursed him while he was sick. Cared for him at home between visits from the home hospice nurse and was by his side, holding his hand, in their living room when he died on Thanksgiving Day 1990.

Mom #2 was different than Mom #1. Mom #2 was calm(er). She loved chocolate. She hated cigarette smoke. She still liked beer. Mom #1 could make bread and rolls from an unwritten recipe she learned from her mother. Mom #2 couldn’t remember the recipe. She was still a fantastic cook. She still used lard, Crisco, Parkay, and bacon grease. Just couldn’t remember THAT particular recipe.

Mom #2 put on some weight.

Mom #2 had to buy new bras.

In the mid-90’s she met a new man. He was great. He had lost his wife around the same time my father died. Where my father wouldn’t hold her hand, he did. He doted on her. He once said to me, “Whoa. She’s a handful!” Several years later, she held his hand when he took his last breath.

We started noticing changes a bit later. Mom #2 started forgetting small things. She started repeating things she’d just said. She had trouble remembering names. Everyone and everything was becoming “whatchamacallit.”

She’d laugh and just attribute it to the can of beer she’d had the night before.

It wasn’t the beer. Things were getting worse. Quickly. We just really didn’t know what to do. We were getting worried.

Mom #2′s Surprise 75th Birthday Party

In 2008, Mom #2 turned 75. I wasn’t sure what the future was for her so I decided to throw her a surprise birthday party. The entire town of Arvilla, ND and the surrounding farm areas showed up to wish her well on her 75^th.

She cried.

She danced.

She saw old friends that she hadn’t seen a years.

She had a blast.

From what she told me afterwards, she’d never had a surprise party until that night. The first real birthday party in 75 years.

I felt bad that I hadn’t done this years before.

Every Tuesday morning without fail, she and her best friend would meet at the Hitching Post Saloon for a morning cup of coffee. They’d done this for years. One Tuesday morning in the fall of 2008, she didn’t show up for her morning coffee.

Something was up.

Mom-inator #3

Mom #2 was being bad. Mom #2 wasn’t watching her blood sugar. After breaking down the door to her house, they found her lying on the living room floor, unconscious. She landed in the ICU again. They weren’t really sure what damage had been done. I was stressing out 1,800 miles away in Reno, NV.

But she pulled through.

She’s the Mom-inator. Remember?

Mom #3 was born.

Before she was released from the hospital, I received a call from my sister, “You need to fly here now.”

My heart sank. I immediately thought the worst. “What’s wrong? Is Mom dying?”

“No. She’s tough. The doctors want her in an assisted living center. She can’t live alone anymore. She’ll be mad. You know she won’t listen to anyone but you.”

It’s that “baby” thing.

I booked a flight from Reno, NV to Minneapolis, MN.

My sister and I walked in the door of her new apartment. The first person Mom #3 saw was my sister. My sister was wrong. Mom wasn’t mad. She was furious. Fire engine red furious. Daggers flew from her eyes.

She yelled at my sister.

Then she saw me.

And she started to cry.

“They put me here,” she sobbed.

I sat down next to her, wrapped my arms around her, and let her cry on my shoulder. I didn’t say a word. When she calmed down and stopped crying, she and I went for a walk to visit her new surroundings. I calmed her down some more. We talked about nothing and everything. We went back to her new apartment and my waiting sister.

My sister looked at me with trepidation as we walked in the door.

“Mom would like to have some new curtains on her windows,” I said and winked.

When my sister and I left my mom’s apartment to get her the curtains, my sister hit me over the head with a rolled up magazine. “John’s the baby. He can do anything,” she mocked.

Then she hugged me.

It’s now 2012.

Mom #3 and Her Baby

Things have calmed down. She has new friends. She plays bingo. She plays pinochle. Nurses make sure she’s watching her sugar. She has an assisted, independent life. She still likes chocolate. Now she loves getting flowers. When I visit and take her out shopping, she tells me I’m driving too fast – and I haven’t even pulled out of the parking lot.

Her Alzheimer’s is getting worse but with her meds, it has slowed. I have noticed that more people are now “whatchamacallit.” She thinks people are stealing her clothes – but no one is. Sometimes she understands her condition and sometimes she uses it to her advantage. She’s the Mom-inator, after all. She likes sweaters with big, colorful appliqués on them. Sweaters adorned with kitties, dogs, pumpkins, turkeys, Christmas trees, or Easter bunnies. She likes to shop at Goodwill because the sweaters only cost a few bucks. We like taking her there because it makes her happy – she’s out shopping. Doing things with her kids. The last time we went, she and I were walking down an aisle – on the lookout for sweaters. I heard a repetitive noise.

Step. Phhhht. Step. Phhhht. Step. Phhhht. Step. Phhhht.

I turned to her. Wide-eyed.

“Mom!” I said.

“What?” she looked at me innocently.

“You’re farting like an old man in a grocery store.”

“I am not!” she said with a wry, indignant smile.

That’s the Mom-inator.

I dedicated my novel, “The Protocol” to her. It says:

This is for you, Mom.

You’ll always be on the highest pedestal in my heart.

I hope you understand why.

(Coming Up Next: Birth of a Red Giant)

Life Isn’t a Box of Chocolates – It’s a Crossword Puzzle

I’ve come to the realization that however yummy it may sound, and despite what Forrest Gump may profess, life is definitely not a box of chocolates.

It’s a crossword puzzle.

And an interestingly tough one at that.

Before you “grow up,” get a job, and have to fill out a 1040, life is like the Monday crossword – pretty easy (for the most part). It’s relatively straightforward – a few curve balls here or there but nothing substantial. Then as the week (and life) progresses, things become a bit more complicated – it goes from the 1040EZ to the multi-schedule 1040 with an “amount due” at the end. When the Sunday puzzle finally comes along, things are coming at you in all directions and your only choice is to sit back, breathe, and try to figure things out – one clue at a time. You have to learn to look at things differently to solve the problems the crossword throws at you.

I truly wish that life was like that box of chocolates. Nothing could be as straight forward as biting into a perfectly square chunk of chocolate and having the only question be whether you’re getting caramel, fudge, or walnuts. But it’s not that easy. Instead, it’s a compilation of several things – it’s pieces of chocolate, fudge, caramel, and walnuts all wrapped up into one sticky mess that you have to untangle to savor the individual flavors. Sometimes, if you’re not careful, and you don’t unwrap things completely, you might even leave a small piece of tinfoil in your candy that launches you into orbit (if you have metal fillings) the instant you bite down.

Unlike the simplicity of candy, life presents clues and leaves it up to you to assemble the letters and decipher the answers – like a crossword puzzle. Sometimes, if you are looking too close, the answer doesn’t clearly present itself – your eyes cross and the puzzle blurs. Your temples throb. Your throat tightens. You have to learn to look at the clues in unique ways.

You have to sit back and refocus.

I know that sounds VERY philosophical. I didn’t come to this realization after reaching a high mountain top in Tibet, climbing through rocky valleys, enduring frigid temperatures, trekking through miles of winding, snowy paths, and becoming scarred from torrents of blowing ice, where I eventually inquired about the meaning of life from some short little guy sitting cross-legged in a cave wearing Sponge Bob Squarepants pajamas smoking Virginia Slims from a custom-made hookah.

Although I have to admit Spongebob is kinda cute and funny (his best friend is a squirrel after all). But I also don’t smoke and I couldn’t climb a mountain if my life depended on it.

It just sort of came to me when I was watching a real-life, crossword puzzle-solving episode in action.

A while ago a group was gathered at my dining room table. Newsprint was stretched out in front of them.

They were flummoxed.

It was 15 ACROSS. The clue was “At the back of a book.”

Since I had written and published two novels, they yelled to me for help – assuming that I knew the most about words and books. Lots of things came to mind to solve the riddle: index, appendix, and conclusion. Those were a few words that I spouted before I knew the constraints of the answer which happened to be restricted to six letters. Nothing I’d pitched thus far fit that mold.

__  __  __  __  __  __

The puzzle stared back at us with mocking emptiness.

So we did the next best thing and began looking at the six DOWN clues that might prove helpful.

15 DOWN: Lincoln Assassin

booTh

T  __  __  __  __  __

20 DOWN: Thirteen Commander.

lovEll

T __  E  __  __  __

Two down. Four to go.

But there’s more to this story than just the crossword . . .

Last fall, I was walking my dog (Jenna) along the Minnehaha Creek here in Minneapolis when she found a sock. I don’t know how or why it happened, but I saw that sock and thought, “What would happen if that sock had a human foot in it?” “If it did have a foot, where’s the human that should be attached to it?” “If it had a foot in it, how did it get there?” The clues snowballed from there and eventually gave birth to my second novel, “The Protocol.” The novel is about eugenics – human euthanization and government-run death panels deciding who is worthy of medical care and who is not. Based on certain statistics and your DNA profile, you are assigned a Protocol by a nameless, faceless government bureaucrat. The wrong Protocol assignment and you don’t have long to live. All of that came from a sock found by my dog.

If life were chocolates, the sock would have had a sign pinned to it telling me what to write about. What’s fun about that? Thankfully, life is a crossword puzzle. The sock and plethora of “what ifs” provided the pieces to build the novel. I merely had to put things together to complete the puzzle. Now that’s fun.

Back to the puzzle at the dining room table. We still had not solved 15 ACROSS.

30 DOWN: Trout basket

crEel

T  __  E  E  __  __

35 DOWN: Diatribes

tiraDes

T  __  E  E  __  D

Only two clues left. We were close but still couldn’t see the solution.

35 DOWN: Propositions

tHeses

35 DOWN: Not yet put to use

unDeveloped

So we now had all of the individual clues worked out but the answer simply didn’t make sense.

theend

We looked it up in the dictionary. It didn’t exist – “theend” wasn’t a word (it still isn’t). It was nowhere to be found.

Things like this happen to me all of the time. The answer will be right in front of me – I’m just too close to see it. I look for my glasses – they’re on my face. I look for my wallet – it’s in my pocket. I look for my keys – I’m holding them. I had to back up and look at it from another angle to solve the riddle of 15 ACROSS.

Which I did.

Then I saw it.

I still laugh about it. Whenever I can’t solve something or have a problem, I yell out one word: “theend”!

It’s never really “theend” though. I definitely don’t want it to be. I’m having way too much fun and finally enjoying life. I just had a book release party for my first two novels that was so much fun. More than 100 people showed up. It was a blast! Now I’m working on three more novels. One is another Eat Teague thriller called “Eat’s Perdition.” The second is Book 2 of the Souls of Megiddo called “Ring of Fire” and the third is a psychological thriller called “Doorway to Your Dreams.” Each novel, like my life has done thus far, has presented me a series of crossword clues that I’ve had to unravel to solve. What’s fun is figuring out what the puzzle is trying to tell me.

So to be sure, this isn’t THEEND.

No way. Not if I have anything to say about it.

It’s just THEBEGINNING.

“You’ll Know When You Feel It” and Other Words of Wisdom

UPDATE

Souls of Megiddo and The Protocol are now available on Amazon.com in paperback and Digital versions!

My dad died on Thanksgiving Day 1990. He was sixty. Thanksgivings will never be the same for me. I also don’t have anyone to call on Father’s Day anymore. I miss not being able to call him, tell him about the strange sound my car is making and have him provide a remote diagnosis. The purpose of this blog though, isn’t for you to feel sorry for the fact that my Thanksgivings will always be tarnished or the fact that I don’t have anyone to call on a particular June Sunday. It’s to convey some of the words of wisdom that I learned from him.

My dad was a man of very few words. He never told me that he loved me. He never called.

That’s not entirely correct. He did.

Once.

When I was in college.

When I picked up the phone and it was him the first thing I thought was that my mom had died.

He laughed.

I knew he loved me though. In his own way. When I left for grad school, he couldn’t say goodbye in person. I saw him watching me out of his office window as I drove away. He was crying. He hugged me at my wedding and cried.

There’s a picture of us together. Both smiling in profile. I never realized how much I looked like him until I saw that picture. Our noses are identical.

Bob Hope noses.

When cigarettes went up to $1.00 a pack, he swore up and down that he was going to quit. He never did. I wonder what he would say now. What do they cost? $5 per pack? More? He’d be having a cow.

He taught me many things without sitting me down and saying “do this, then do that, then do this.”

We were a farming family. We farmed about 20 quarters of land in Eastern North Dakota. That comes out to about 3,200 acres. It was a lot of work. Constant work. Being a pre-teen then a teenager growing up there, I didn’t appreciate it at the time. Now admire the days when I could sit in a tractor and work the land. I think I was 10 the first time he set me loose on a field (an 80-acre chunk) with a tractor, a cultivator, and a jug of water.

“How do I know if I’m going deep enough?” I asked.

“You’ll know when you feel it,” he replied. “Just turn around before you hit the trees.”

He watched for a bit. Then he left.

I didn’t kill any trees.

The tractor, the cultivator, and I survived unscathed.

In a couple of months I graduated to the behemoth 4-wheel drive tractor and monstrously large cultivator with hydraulic wings. I couldn’t quite reach the clutch without standing up.

My dad enjoyed traveling. It didn’t have to be a global expedition. A lake twenty miles from home was good enough. He liked to fish. Sometimes I think it was just the act of being on the water, away from work, with a beer in his hand and a Winston in his mouth that he enjoyed. The first time I went fishing, he was there.

“Just let the line out,” he said.

“How will I know when I’ve caught something?”

“You’ll know when you feel it.”

Since we were trolling, there was a constant pull on the pole. I kept reeling the lure back in. Sure that I had something.

It was empty.

I’d let it back out then look at Dad.

“You’ll know when you feel it,” he said with a shrug after another swig of his Coors and a drag of his cigarette that he’d eventually flick into the lake when he was done.

He was right. Of course.

He smiled when I caught my first fish.

I definitely felt it.

So, naturally, when I wrote my novels “The Protocol” and “Souls of Megiddo” I had to have a caricature of my dad somewhere in each of them. I like to think he’d be proud of me. He was, after all, driving the car when the infamous Auntie Hot Lips from my first Blog post suggested that I not attempt any career in writing or astronautics. Sometimes Dad’s an overt presence in my novels. Sometimes it’s an essence of him. I can’t explain exactly where he is, but you’ll know it when you feel it.

Just turn around before you hit the trees.

Always Check Your Coffee Cup Before You Take a Sip

UPDATE

Souls of Megiddo and The Protocol are now available on Amazon.com in paperback and Digital versions!

I recently saw a joke that went something like this: “What’s more useful: a writer or a pizza?”

The answer you ask?

A pizza. Because it can feed a family of four.

Or something like that.

But I’m sure you catch the drift.

For as long as I can recollect, I’ve wanted to either be an astronaut or a writer. I remember a long-ago conversation I had with my aunt while we were sitting in the back seat of my parents’ brown Dodge Monaco.

“So John, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

“I want to be an astronaut,” I replied.

“Oh. You shouldn’t do that. I’d think of something else,” she said.

“I want to write books too,” I said confidently.

“Oh. I don’t think you should do that either.”

She was the same aunt who, a few years later, mistook her cup of coffee for a cup of hot bacon grease one morning and forever became known as Auntie Hot Lips. Based on her unenthusiastic responses to my career goals, I assumed I was destined to collect roadside garbage.

Although it’s been something I’ve wanted to do all of my life, it’s been something that I’ve postponed all of my life. Why? Not because of Auntie Hot Lips – even though what she said still reverberates in my archives and percolates up now and then (like it just did).

No. Not her. I remember her more because of hot grease and blistered, swollen lips.

It’s also not because I’m an astronaut.

It’s that damn pizza. And good, old fashioned, blood-curdling fear.

It’s not a fear of pizza – I love pizza.

Or a fear of getting constipated from too much cheese on said pizza.

Or a fear of drinking bacon grease instead of coffee.

Or a fear of being in orbit without a Papa John’s or Pizza Hut nearby.

It’s a fear of actually “doing it” and coming in second place to that damn pizza.

A fear of sitting down, writing, and putting my work out there for everyone to read. Fear that everyone will totally detest what I’ve created. Fear that what I write isn’t great literature. Fear that the way I’m going about things is outside of the norm of what everyone has been lead to believe is the way publishing is supposed to be done.

Who defines “norm” anyway?

Isn’t he that guy on Cheers that everyone knows? All he did was sit on a bar stool all day and drink the same mug of beer. What could he possibly know about publishing? Unless it had something to do with beer, I don’t think I’d follow his advice anyway.

It took a while, but I’m finally over my fears. What changed? I recently read a book by John Locke that pointed me in the right direction and hit me with a truckload of common sense. His book helped me create a plan for my writing and tackle my fears about making my writing available – out in the world so to speak. It’s like letting go of my kids as they leave for college and don’t need Dad each and every day.

I now realize and accept a couple of things that I didn’t before. . .

• I accept that what I write is not of Shakespearean quality. People don’t talk or read iambic pentameter anymore anyway so I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing – the market just isn’t there. I seriously doubt that my novels will be compared to Charles Dickens in a hundred years. I won’t be here to relish in the glory anyway! Gee, right now I’m not even close to Dean Koontz or Stephen King or Vince Flynn or Erma Bombeck for that matter. Ok. Maybe Erma. Perhaps someday my novels will be close to the others I absolutely love to read (Flynn, Koontz, King, Locke). But you know what? I LOVE writing – I get lost when I write. The words and characters take over and all of the sudden it’s midnight. That’s what matters to me. I’m starting small and working my way up. I’ve done it before in my regular day job. I’ll do it again here.
• I don’t have to entertain or be loved by everyone. Nice idea – unrealistic expectation. I feel I’ve wasted enough time in the past trying to please everyone. It’s a very tiring task. I do want to entertain a bunch of you though as I’d like to be able to afford pizza – sans anchovies of course – and maybe someday be able to order double pepperoni and jalapenos.
• I don’t have to be as good as Flynn, Koontz, or King right now. It’s a goal though. Their books can cost a nice chunk of change. I’ve bought almost everyone one of their novels and have thoroughly enjoyed most of them. Mine? They will be very affordable on your iPad, Kindle, or Nook. Are Koontz, King, or Flynn ten, twenty, or thirty times better than me? I personally don’t think so. Everyone has to start somewhere. Right?  (Although the words are not exact, this concept came from John Locke and it’s one that I’ll never forget and will always use. Thanks Mr. Locke for such great advice.)
• I have to plan my work and work my plan. I could just write, put my work out there, and hope that people will buy it, download it, read it, rate it and hopefully come back for more. That just ain’t gonna happen. Though easily said, it’s not easily done. There’s a lot of hard work to be done first. Instead, I’m going to use all of the technology (social media, web sites, and blogs) that I have available to me to make the world aware that there’s a new novelist in town. This is technology that Auntie Hot Lips could only dream of. Finally I’ll be using Mr. Locke’s marketing plan to tie everything up in a nice tidy package complete with a pretty bow. To let everyone know my work is out there. To make it so incredibly easy and painless to buy, that it becomes second nature, and readers come back for more.

This isn’t all on my shoulders though.

It’s on yours too, of course.

Yours?

Yes, yours. Only with your support can the lives of my characters continue. I may have given birth to them, but you, as a reader, provide sustenance: continued life. I’ll introduce you to them now.

Eat Teague, the good guy in The Protocol, loves an audience despite being a computer geek. He’s a nice guy with a weird name who enjoys Cookie Crisp cereal and Hot Pockets. He’s caught in the middle of a medical nightmare that is only supposed to happen in science fiction movies. His problem is that it’s reality, It’s his reality – not sci fi.

Jacob Collier, the good guy in the first Souls of Megiddo novel, has the burden of being a Caretaker of an ancient stone created in 75 BC. A stone that was held by a condemned Jew as he was nailed to a Roman cross. A stone carried by Thomas Beckett before he was slain by a group of King Henry’s knights. Jacob needs someone to help him understand his job and the daunting tasks before him. If he succeeds, then we can all count on waking up on December 22, 2012. If not? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens on the 21st as the Mayan predication of the end of the world comes to pass.

You, as a reader, provide the oxygen Eat and Jacob need to live. I hope you will give both guys continued life and purpose.

The Protocol and Souls of Megiddo: The Caretaker will both be available after Mother’s Day, 2012. Click here to join my mailing list to be notified when they are ready for download.

This will be one of the most exciting roller coaster rides I’ve ever taken with lots of loops, ups, and downs. It’s gonna be a wild ride! If I’ve learned anything though, it’s to always check your coffee cup before you take a sip.