IRISHMAN FOR HIRE

“There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone and this old man is all that’s left. I got to live with that…” said Red in Shawshank Redemption. Powerful words! I feel for Red every time I watch that scene, but that movie also conjures up questions about my own life.

A few years ago, some friends and I were sitting around, drinking a couple of beers and telling war stories of our youth. We covered all of our triumphs, our glory days, our conquests and even some of our bigger mistakes. At one point in time someone asked me, “If you had a chance to go back in time and change one thing in your life, would you do it?”

“Yes,” I said. “I would.”

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I could here the crack of the bat as I watched the ball whiz past third base; “foul!” On the next pitch, Josh rifled a single between the shortstop and the third baseman. His first at bat ever and he was on base with a single through the left side of the infield. I gave him the thumbs up sign while I was leaning against the chain link fence on the third base side of the field and he cracked a smile at me as he dug his foot into the dirt next to the bag.

Stephanie and Chloe joined us in the middle of the second inning. It was a sunny Mother’s Day morning but a frigid wind was whipping across the field. It sent chills up my spine but nothing would have kept us away from the field on Sunday. After all of the rain we have had, the first game of the season was finally upon us and Josh had a great game. I was proud of him.

When the game ended, we climbed into the car and quickly whisked Stephanie away to celebrate Mother’s Day. I held Stephanie’s hand while we walked through the Arnold Arboretum for Lilac Sunday. The wind had subsided and the sun was shining down as the fragrances of over four hundred types of Lilacs wafted through the air. I smiled as hundreds of strangers went about their day around us because I was content. I was exactly where I wanted to be with the people who matter the most in my life.

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Stephanie and I were sitting on the couch watching Parenthood on TiVo last week and in one of the scenes, the entire family had gotten together to spend a routine evening together. While the parents were in the kitchen washing the dishes, cleaning up and talking about a new boyfriend who had been invited to join them, Stephanie turned to me and said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have regular family dinners like that?”

“We do, Stephanie,” I replied.

“No, Doug,” she said forlornly. “You know what I mean.”

“I do and we have them,” I said as the commercial break ended and the show started again.

Ever since Stephanie’s mother passed away, some of our family members have dispersed like dandelions in the wind. Kathy was the glue that kept those traditions alive and made sure routine dinners as well as holiday celebrations were the foundation for a cohesive family unit. Since her passing, life has scattered many of the family members to the four corners of the universe for one reason or another.

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As I fluttered my eyelids a few times while trying to wake up, I could hear my daughter had climbed into bed with us and was trying to be snuggly. I adjusted my eyes on the picture hanging on the wall, rubbed my right hand over my forehead and then through my hair as I rolled over to see my smiling four year-old staring at me.

“Good morning, Daddy!”

“Good morning, Chloe,” I mumbled as I stared exhaustedly at the ceiling. “What time is it?”

“6:45,” came a response from Stephanie who was still trying to pretend to be asleep on her side of the bed.

“Guess what, Chloe?”

“What?”

“I have a surprise for you today. Go see if you’re brother is awake.” And with that pronouncement, Chloe jumped off of the bed and ran into Josh’s room. As the door slammed full force against his bedroom wall with a loud thud, I turned to Stephanie and quipped, “Josh is up now.”

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It all started in a little field in Goldston, North Carolina on Columbus Day weekend in 2008. It had been a tough year and our family needed a weekend away to reenergize. It was a fun weekend of swimming, relaxation and a lot of kid friendly activities. And on the first day of our trip, we attended the Goldston Old Fashion Day.

As Stephanie and I sat there in a field off of West Goldbar Avenue and watched our children playing in the bounce house, our conversation turned serious for a moment. “I met you when your Mom was a little older than I am now, Steph,” I said as I watched my kids having a good time with some of the local children. “If she only knew she had seventeen years left to live, do you think she would have spent more time accomplishing all of the things that she dreamed about doing?”

“Everyone would,” Stephanie replied, “but no one knows what tomorrow is going to bring.”

Sage advice from my deeply grounded wife and there was a lot of wisdom in her statement for me to ponder. A few months later, I spent the day living out one of my dreams in Disney World. It had been years since I had had the itch to take the stage but in one afternoon, I was reacquainted with my old passion to perform. And as the day was ending, I was still on cloud nine. Unable to fall asleep, I walked around our hotel grounds and took in the sights and sounds of a brisk Florida evening and thought for a moment, “What if?”

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We circled the block a few times trying to find a parking space. The wind whipped through the New York City buildings and a light snow fell as my nerves started to get the best of me. Could I do this? What if we got caught? Was this really how I wanted to spend my Christmas Eve? And if I found the answers I was looking for; what if I didn’t like what I had found?

A car pulled out from a parking space up in front of me. My heart was pounding through the outer wall of my chest as I waited for the vehicle to drive away. Then I parked my car in the space that had been vacated.

Stephanie got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk waiting for me. I sat there for a moment as I contemplated my options for the last time. Then I took the key out of the ignition, took a deep breath, got out of the car and joined Stephanie on the sidewalk.

“Ready?” she asked.

The wind tore across our faces like the prickly fingers of the Wicked Witch of the West, warning us against going any further. The gray, drab, dreary day was a perfect backdrop against the frozen city and as we both shivered from the cold, I looked deep into her eyes and said, “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

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Do you hear what I hear? Do you hear roars of jubilation, celebrations, singing and cheering?! Do you hear the frustration, the heartbreak, the disappointment and the angry outbursts?! Have you heard it lately? Well if you have, you are not alone; ‘Tis the season for the fantasy football playoffs! The time of the year that is filled with the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!”

Depending on the rules of the fantasy football league, the playoffs either started last Sunday or they kick off this weekend. It is the point in the season when an entire year of research, preparation and super fandom come down to one week, one match up and ultimately, one do or die situation. Win the game and continue towards a championship! Lose the game and end another year of one’s life dedicated to building the perfect fantasy football franchise.

I have been a New York Giants fan all of my life. I joined my first fantasy football league in 1987 and from that first season, I have been hooked on this extremely addictive game. But it wasn’t until the mid 1990s that fantasy football really started to grab the enthusiasm of the American public. And when ESPN created an entire gaming division around fantasy sports, fantasy football exploded onto the scene as the premier attraction for men, women and children of all ages!

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It is official. I have officially ended my political career. I have dissolved my committee. And even though I have declared my intentions, I have been asked numerous times over the weekend to reconsider. But this is not a Brett Favre melodrama, this decision is final.

The contemplation of whether or not to run started three months ago as more and more people approached me about running for statewide office again. And as I weighed the option of running, I came to the conclusion that there are so many good reasons to run for State Representative but at the same time, there are so many better reasons not to enter the race in 2010. And after I had lunch with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, I knew my brief flirtation with politics had come to an end.

“Are you going to run for State Representative next year?” he asked.

“I’m not a politician. 2004 was a different time and I think it’s time for me to move on.”

“What are you talking about? You’re the best chance we have at winning the seat.”

“I applaud your optimism but let me rephrase my answer; I am an obsolete politician! I am old school. So no, I won’t be running next year,” I said as his jaw fell wide open at my declaration. He pressed me for the reasons I used to justify myself as an obsolete politician so I spelled them out for him.

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“Chloe, want to play Santa Claus?” I asked the other day as I was getting ready to shave.

“Yes!” Chloe responded as she ran to get her stool so she would have something to stand upon.

“Alright, I’ll meet you in there,” I said as I headed into the bathroom, took out my shaving stuff and started to run the hot water.

“Never mind, Dad,” she yelled at me as she waltzed past the bathroom a few minutes later and headed for the back door. “Josh and I are going to play in the backyard! See you later.”

The Santa Claus game started a couple of years ago when Chloe followed me into the bathroom one day and she watched me put shaving cream on my face. “You look like Santa Claus,” she said to me and as I looked at myself in the mirror, I had to agree with her. The shaving cream looked like the white, billowy beard of Father Christmas and before I knew what I was doing, I broke into my best impression of Saint Nick and had a conversation with Chloe as if I was the jolly old elf himself.

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One of the first acts we committed as parents was to count the fingers and toes of our children. Once all of their appendages had been accounted for, we started to examine our children to see what features they had received from us. Did they get my eyes? My Ears? My nose? Did they get any of my traits? Or did they get them all from Stephanie? And we were not the only ones who engaged in this ritual, our family members tried to account for what genetic qualities our children got from them as well.

As our children have grown up, Stephanie and I have often joked about which personality traits each of us gave to the children. The debate rages on over Joshua because he seems to have so many physical features and personality traits from both Stephanie and I. On the other hand, though, it has been firmly established by many of our friends and family members that Chloe got her beauty from her mother and her temperament as well as her humor from me.

The fun part of having these conversations is that we can pinpoint exactly which traits Stephanie got from each of her parents but because I am adopted, everyone wants to know from whom I get my idiosyncratic style. Is it genetic? Or is it environmental? And whenever the conversation is brokered, it leads to a lot of fun filled, zany and downright hilarious theories as to how I became the person I am today.

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