Mortal Sins

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Sometimes, or let me rephrase this, I always stew about my writing….  just like a Sunday Slow Cooker recipe.  Sometimes, it turns out wonderful, and sometimes it tastes like shit……just like my writing.

I’ve been stewing about writing some important stories about my life and others’ and quite  genuinely, those are the most difficult to express.  When you send something out to the world, also known as A Corner Club (my brother’s tavern), it puts you at risk.  So, now I’m going to try to write something fun.  Please, don’t find it boorish.

My father was not a Jew. (Bless their hearts, brains and money).  My father was the provider of thirteen Catholic boys and girls.  He always made certain food was on the table, a tent was over our heads, and we always had patched pants mom would provide.

Growing up in the Catholic church became a bit confusing for the youngest of 13.  I did my best to discern the difference between mortal and venial sins.  Other than loving my family unconditionally as a young boy, and basically just playing in the yard, I didn’t know how to confess my sins; I really didn’t have any (yet).  This is when I began my lying career.

I am no saint, and I ain’t no angel, but I lied my ass off in those confessionals.  I couldn’t think of anything I did wrong.  I didn’t use profanity in those days, but I lied to the priest saying I did.  This was extremely taxing…….making up bad stuff just to be absolved of my sins.  I was honest when I said I was thinking bad thoughts about some of my siblings……meaning, since I couldn’t beat them up, I’d just hide their wallet, containing nothing other than a condom they would never use.  After the concussions, it seemed the only way to get back at them.

We learned from our father what the really egregious sins were.  He began making pretty good money to support us, and, one day, other than giving to charity, he wanted to know what was on our wish list.  I wanted a bat.  My siblings wanted a pool.  Determination?Venial sin. Out of the question.  Dad knew that was a recipe for Gannon Disaster.  Then, he asked what was second on our wish list.  Knowing this was a Mortal Sin, we sheepishly replied……”call waiting?”

That’s when the shit hit the rotary phone, and I was not allowed to talk to the girl in the eighth grade I’m currently married to.

Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from call waiting.  We decided to stick to rock fights and good food.

 

Overrated or Underrated PG 13?

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Making the decision on how to rate movies must be a tricky situation.  Since we don’t have any children, we don’t really give a damn about ratings.  It’s my rule to keep things pretty clean when writing, but there is no way to watch a movie such as, “The Big Lebowski” without the glorious F bomb explosions.  That’s why I only watch TV when Seinfeld is on or a baseball game is being played which includes a lovely display of profanity by the players, my wife and her husband watching.  I ain’t no Saint.

One of my six favorite sisters once told me, “Kids are overrated”.  I thought that was funny.  But, sadly, it made some sense. We do have two gigantic dogs and I find them underrated.  We don’t have to save money to send them to college.  We don’t have to explain to them why unions are a phony way to get by in the U S of A.  (I actually respect unions….but I don’t respect the abuse of unions).  Our dogs play catch with me each day, whether it’s outside, in the office, or on the top of our house.  A tennis ball or baseball to them is like a beer to me.  They just have to have one…..or one hundred.

Ultimately, what’s underrated about dogs and children are their smiles.  Dogs smile just like wonderful children, but unlike dogs, many children use profanity just like they are in a local tavern.  Rated R for ridiculous.

I’d hate to know what our dogs would like to tell us some days.  So far, our dogs are rated G……for good.

 

 

Mission Impossible

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This morning, I wanted to wish one of my six favorite brothers, Steve, a Happy Father’s Day.       As any good man would reply, he said, “Thanks”.

What I love about my brother is that he is genuine.  And, I think he knew I was speaking genuinely.  That brother, Steve, has done a great deal for me for many years.

Steve has three wonderful children and a handful of grandchildren.  I have none of the above.

But here’s the story.  I also had to ask him how he was going to spend this father’s day.  He replied, “I have to train a bartender”.  (Steve has established and maintained a bar for twenty some odd years……quite a feat.  That’s sincere)

Knowing that training a bartender is a difficult task when his children should be making him breakfast, I asked him a simple question before parting words:
” Can you teach this bartender how not to steal?”

His response?  “Impossible”.

I laughed and wished him a great day.

His laughter was my medicine on this day.

 

 

Who is Pat Conroy? (Kiss my shrimp and Grits)

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My inspiration for writing is devoted to one person, and a whole lot of other ones.  That was written with confusion, but allow me to explain.

His name is “The Prince of Tides”.

Visiting the majestic city of Charleston, South Carolina, my wife and I drank the beer, ate the cool shrimp and grits and tasted a dish called “she crab soup”.  I will never find its’ equal.  My favorite author, Pat Conroy, is respectfully known in Beaufort, South Carolina as a man who wrote, “The Prince of Tides”.  He has also written many other books blessed with grace and a voice I’d like to hear and have one beer with.   I did not wish to receive an autograph, see his home or annoy him in any way.  It was pure maple syrup curiosity.

In South Carolina, Britt, (my wife) and I, would ask questions as to what we determined the nicest people in the world. Our questions seemed to be answered. They shook hands.  They said strange phrases such as “Please and Thank you”.  When I opened the door for anyone, they replied,  “Thank you Ma’am, or Thank you, Sir. These were white women and black men treating all of us as equals.  I am indeed a man, but if they were to refer to me as a ma’am, I would  reply with great dignity and say to them….with a genuine smile.”You are very welcome”.

Pat Conroy provided excitement for the mere notion of the scary attempt at doing what I wished for. Writing.  Middle School students provided the gasping relief to know I required a different profession.

My first job interview as an English novice, I was asked one very, and  dreadfully dishonest question.  ” Who is your favorite Author?”  Initially, I thought, in the most phony of ways, Shakespeare,  Chaucer, Hardy, and even the saddest and craziest of all, Emily Dickenson.   I needed to impress these idiots so I could make forty grand a year with summers off.

Beg to differ.  Rather than pulling out the confusing cards such as Shake, Chauce, Emily Dick and even Hardy…..who made me suffer for three long years without baseball, I busted out Pat Conroy.  None of these imbeciles knew who I was referring to.  I said, “you know, the guy who wrote the “Prince of Tides.”

Their response………oh……….yeah, yeah…..good good.  Anything else?

Nope.  It was at that moment,I recognized how ridiculously stupid administration could be.  There was no Waaaaayyy I was going to work for them.

I didn’t get the job, but I knew where my path was leading.  After fifteen of years teaching, I finally found my Shrimp and Grits.  And, I’m going to retire with her.

I did meet Pat Conroy, and he was just as expected.  He was the Prince of Tides, and South Carolina is definitely, the prince of tides.

Ben Gannon

 

 

 

A Diamond in the Rough (The Painfully Slow Evolution of a Baseball Team)

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There are four measurements on a diamond: cut, clarity, color, and carrot.  There are four measurements on a baseball field: hitting, throwing, running and catching.  Both are measured in terms of perfection when it comes to a ring or the baseball field.

Talking to a scientist the other day, he informed me that a piece of crap, or a piece of coal, can turn into a diamond with enough pressure and time after several thousand years.  This was sad news.  Immortality is not my business.  He also informed me that diamonds are extremely costly.  I already knew that, but I questioned him further by asking why diamonds are just as expensive as going to a Seattle Mariner’s Baseball game.  He laughed at me and replied, “That’s why they call the field a diamond…..it’s really expensive, because it’s a place to witness perfection.”  Still shaking my head in disbelief, just like a child asks questions to an adult they can’t possibly answer, I asked “Don’t the Mariners play on a field then?”  My business is asking rhetorical questions.  My scientist friend knew he could not answer this question.  Therefore, I answered it for him.

Here we go.  “You see, scientist friend, when I grew up, I played on baseball fields.  These fields were plagued with weeds and gigantic rocks almost resembling erratics from the Great Missoula Floods.  The stands were filled with angry fathers not volunteering their time but volunteering their mouths during a game littered with nice kids, but crappy ballplayers.  There were these unusual ladies also showing up giving little advice, other than, “who is in charge of the treats at the next game?” Later on, I found out they were mothers.  I found it strange they didn’t even watch the game.  They did their nails, gossiped, and spoke evilly of their estranged husbands.  But, what baffled me the most was when their son struck out in four consecutive at bats on twelve consecutive pitches, the mother would hand him a soda, or a drumstick or a fruit roll up and say, “Wow, you were terrific today!”  Now if you say that to a real ballplayer after striking out, it adds kindling to the campfire.  It might smell good, but it still burns like hell.  So, the only proper thing to do as a real ballplayer is to toss the soda over a fence, beat one of your other crappy teammates with the drumstick and refrain from strangling your mother with the fruit roll up.  Then you head home and sneak a beer out of your father’s hidden stash in the basement.

Mr Scientist seemed to be getting bored with my explanation, so he wanted me to reach my point.  So, I told him that diamonds are supposed to be beautiful.  Since a field represents a little league ballpark, a baseball diamond should be saved for when you make it to the big leagues…….you know, like the guys I used to watch on T.V. and admired since I left the womb.  Those guys deserved to play on a Baseball Diamond.  The Seattle Mariners have a dynamite field, but let’s not go too far as to refer to it as a diamond.

I’ve been watching these guys play for 35 years.  If it takes another one thousand years to see them in the World Series, I’m clean out of luck.  This chunk of coal doesn’t have that much time to see a diamond, unless it’s on my wife’s finger.  I see that every day.

With all this being written atop my soap baseball box, I’m on my way to go see a chunk of coal on a baseball field at Keep me Safeco Field.  I’ll purchase a ticket, buy some Cracker Jacks, a dog and a beer, financing the diamond earrings the players will wear after the game and, hopefully, not become too embarrassed by the mothers and fathers misunderstanding the process of how long it takes a coal turn into a diamond.

That’s how much I love the game.

 

 

Mount St. Hell (the tale of a seven year old brain)

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(This is only a seven year old’s perspective on his first day in Hell.  I mean no disrespect to heaven, God, my mother or volcanos……for all you jerks trying to edit my writing, yes, it can be spelled “VOLCANOES” as well……even if you are seven years old)

Where were you when Mount St. Helens blew?  I know where I was when it blew.  I was in our backyard playing football in Spokane, Washington with my brothers, and it was one of the worst days of my life……at that time of my serendipitous life.

At seven years old,  I didn’t understand or believe the magnitude of this event. I believed in several things, such as baseball, football, being forced to go to church on Sundays and my mom.  My mother, attempting to explain to a seven year old that pitch darkness would be arriving in ashes around noon made no sense at all to me while the sun still had many hours left allowing us to play before dinner.  It was the first time I didn’t believe what she said.

Believing in God, I couldn’t believe a volcano could turn off the sun like a lamp.  I thought, is a volcano more powerful than God?  I was frustrated and confused.  I wasn’t afraid, just angry because I cherished being able to play baseball and football on weekends with my brothers, and indeed, my mother was correct….as usual.

When the sun went off in Spokane, I finally believed in what those priests were saying about Heaven and Hell.  For me, heaven was in our backyard.  Then, on that dreadful day of May, 18th, 1980, I believed Hell blew many miles into our own yard from a volcano.  We had to be inside for a whole day which started out beautifully, and ended up in darkness.  My day was ruined, but then it even became worse the very next day.  We had to shovel that Godforsaken Ash that next day like it was the middle of winter.  Additionally, we were forced to wear these ridiculous masks so we wouldn’t develop some form of lung cancer.  Hell, thanks to my dad, I second hand smoked two packs a day from the day I was born.

Since then, I’ve forgiven the volcano, God, and those brand new ashes I only thought could show up on a day called Ash Wednesday, or in a tray one of my brothers would create in pottery class as a gift for our father.

I’m not quite as mature as I was in those days, but I am a bit older.  Nostalgia is always fun, even when it blows some people and trees out of their homes and habitat.

 

A Mother’s Day Hangover and 65 Cents

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When you hit the age of somewhere around twenty five to forty, you hear hangovers can last upwards of two full days.  This hangover I’m speaking of has nothing to do with alcohol.  It’s about all those mothers we have to please on Sunday.  It’s exhausting making the one, and the other ones you love so much, feel that love.

I only have one mother.  Her name is Margaret.  She is an exceptionally special person.  Yet, men and women alike choose to make phone calls to other mothers who have made a difference in their lives.  It doesn’t always have to be the one carrying you around in her belly for nine months, shooting you out of her hoo ha, and then still takes care of you and her other twelve children forty years later.  You may have outlaws…..sorry, in-laws visiting you on that weekend.  It may be your mother in-law and Grandmother in-law. (Two wonderful people) They only require two things:  Breakfast and Scrabble.  This is where a girl like me becomes a man.  I lay down the (in) LAWS.

Capable of convincing anyone on a Sunday Mother’s Day that all restaurants are closed on said day, I am equally capable of making them a hearty breakfast in our humble home for less than ten dollars and less than a thirteen hour wait in line at an “I HOPE I never eat here again”.  It’s a famous chain.  My pancakes, bacon and eggs take a mere twenty seven minutes.  This makes the mothers happy, and Ben a happy man.  Then, I beat the hell out of them in a friendly game of Scrabble.

Church:  Also closed on Mother’s Day.  Most elderly women don’t want to believe this.  In my world, Church is always closed on days such as Christmas, Easter, weddings, and most Sundays.  I’ll make an exception for a funeral.

Cards are really nice, but you have to leave that for your one and only mom.  Again, this is my world.  Phone calls are far easier than writing a sarcastic letter to your true mother who deserves so much more.  The letter I sent my mother only cost HER sixty five cents.  I placed the incorrect postage on the letter.  The mailman did deliver it ONE FULL DAY before Mother’s Day.  He just wouldn’t give it to her before she scrambled around looking for sixty five cents.  Now, I have great respect for men and women who deliver mail in rain, snow and are willing to charge my mother, (eighty five years of age, mind you) extra cash because a letter weighs over four ounces.  She paid for the extra postage, but made the postman, holding this heavy letter, wait about four minutes.  She has a great sense of humor.  Evidently, he was none too pleased with the weight and wait.  What the postman forgot to do, bless his heart, was open the mail to see if there was any money enclosed.  Indeed there was.  I also included with the letter thirteen dollars, representing mom’s thirteen children.  She called me on Saturday, and she couldn’t stop laughing.  It is the best medicine, and it made my day.

I recovered from the weekend hangover.

It takes Two to Rumble

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It does take two to rumble, and, quite often, it’s with your wife.  Scrabble, Monopoly, the Game of Life; they mean nothing compared to TV and Mother’s Day.  We have no children so I have had a heck of a time trying to get our dogs and cats to write a Mother’s Day card for her.  They can eat tennis balls, which I can’t and never wish to do, but they are incapable of using  the pen and paper I toss them.  I even provide the card.  All they have to do is write down the address, including area code, and, with their paws, give a signature……..Am I asking too much?  I think not.  The dogs and cats look at me as if I am insane.

I had their nails cut today, cleaned that gooey stuff out of their eyes, explained basic English skills, and even let them know that it’s ok to make an error……unless they’re playing third base or centerfield, or miss Mother’s Day.

What’s that Smell?

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Having a spooky honker, I am capable of smelling many items no other person the age of thirty nine can detect.  I’m also close to being legally blind so my nostrils must do the walking.

Cat Box:  Disgusting, but easy

Dog Poop Patrol: I smell better with my nose and walk more efficiently in my sleep doing that crap

Receipts:  They smell sort of strange, but I have a keen sense of getting screwed, so I am capable of discussing the manner with any banker

Clean cut grass:  I search the world for this stuff because mowing grass smells like something I haven’t had to  do for a long time.

A Baseball Glove:  There’s nothing like the smell of leather which requires molding, shaping, placing beneath your bed, allowing it to marinate in the bathtub, (with epson salts of course) or dousing it with oil.

Napalm:  I’m stealing this from a famous movie, but I’ve heard there is no better smell.  I beg to differ.  My father, fighting in the Korean War, did not find the smell so warming, since he was hit by a patch of it.

A Post Office:  Most humans don’t believe they exist; Completely obsolete.  Today, I found one and I could smell the twenty dollars they required so my mother could receive my letter in time for Mother’s Day.  My sense of smell cost me an hour in line, some profanity and a parking ticket……….my mother is worth it.

Speaking and smelling of fathers, let’s talk about Mothers instead.  They smell of peace, tranquility, laughter, honesty and flowers you forget to purchase them on that sacred Mother’s Day.

I love my mom, just like all of you do your own.  She smells better, sees better, hears better (depending on her batteries) and loves better than anyone I know.

Hopefully, you feel and smell the same about your mom as I do.

 

 

 

 

Standardized State Festering

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Ok, just raise your hands, everyone, when I ask you this question: Who doesn’t love standardized state tests?  Ok, everyone, put your hands down.  EVERYONE, PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN!  Let me tell all you mouth breathers in the audience, they can be fun……..for teachers.

Teachers get some days off.  Teachers get to act like they are grading papers during these hours of silence, when they are actually e-mailing their girlfriend in Seattle, or even a girlfriend working at the school.  This is a glorious time when teachers get to text, use I Phones, I Pads and Maxy Pads without any of the students being aware of anything.  It’s terrific because those students are completely oblivious as to what the teacher is doing.  They’re simply terrified because they actually believe this seventh or eighth grade test will determine their wealth and fame in life.  It’s a time when a student loses all hope and faith in themselves, our country and the Metric System.  (Are we still using that ridiculous system?)

Sadly, the fun has to end for some teachers on this day of reckoning.  Many students end the scheduled six hour test in five minutes.  This means two of two things.  After looking at the test, the students say to themselves, “F this noise”, or, ” I’m not even going to entertain the notion that I can pass this ridiculously biased test”, thus presenting a dilemma for the teacher, who after administering the test, must be burdened by the idea of keeping a student busy for the next silent five hours and fifty five minutes.  I developed a cure for the disease of boredom for twelve and thirteen year olds.  “Hocus Focus”.

A long time ago, in a land far to close, I was a full time employee and part time teacher at a very respected school district.  With some of my closest friends, we had to maintain our own sanity when witnessing students giving up on these tests before they even began.  I didn’t blame some of them.  I felt sorry for them.  Therefore, I broke out what I called “The Old Fashion”.  For some people, that means a doughnut.  For drunks, it’s a wake up drink, or “hair of the dog”.  For teachers, it was “Hocus Focus”.  These are two pictures you can provide on an overhead projector displaying similar scenes where you are forced to find the differences.  These students who finished the test in five minutes would work on these picture puzzles for another five minutes.  They would have to find ten differences in the pictures.  Examples:  bad hairline in one pic, full head of hair in the other, child in one yard giving the “I’m number one finger” and child in the other yard giving the “middle finger”,  a father barbecuing with a can of beer in one pic, and a father barbecuing with a bottle of vodka in the other.  These were great teaching tools.  Sadly, they hit so close to home plate for many of these students, I could not print enough of these pictures off because they were so good at finding the differences, and they loved it.  This is when a bad teacher becomes a clever teacher.  This is an ancient Irish secret: I printed off two identical pictures and told them they must find the ten differences.  They spent the next five hours and thirteen minutes working on that project.

I never gave them the answers, because there were none…..just like some of the questions on that dreadful test they were so subjectively forced to take.   I hope they get the important answers in life correct someday.

(This is written with much respect to all teachers, especially the ones I sort of worked with for fifteen years, and with no respect to the administration level and the people who didn’t have to be in those rooms for so many years…….)