Tag: Father’s Day

Protests and Poetry

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“Are you guys going to the protests this Saturday?” Nick wondered last Wednesday via a text.

“No. We aren’t planning to. It’s just too hot,” I responded to my son.

But as the week wore on, I began to regain my energy following three phenomenal concerts with my Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus pals.

On Friday, I reconsidered Nick’s question. I told him Tom and I would do it. A few of our chorus friends wanted to join us too at a No Kings protest in Scottsdale.

I should tell you that I don’t consider myself an activist, though I have marched for various causes on several occasions in my life. I prefer to share my voice and perspective through my writing.

But I also recognize the dire state of our democracy. I decided if my World War II veteran father (he defended democracy in Europe with the allied forces during the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944) could endure frozen feet in foxholes with his buddies and risk his life as an army sergeant, I could certainly endure the 90-plus desert temperatures in Arizona for two hours, wave my American flag and “We the People” sign, and join forces with family and friends to raise my voice. To make sure it was heard.

So, Saturday came, and we did it … Mark, Tom, Nick, Kim, Dougal, George and one to two thousand others represented democracy in Old Town Scottsdale. We were a dot in a map of some five million in the U.S. and abroad who took to the streets in big cities and small towns. All of us deeply concerned.

Locally, it was an inspiring and peaceful No Kings protest consisting of angry but well-behaved women and men. Young and old. A few children with parents and grandparents. Couples. Singles. Straight. Gay. Multi-cultural. Dogs, too. Dare I say diverse?

At one point, Tom and I chatted with a fifty-something mother from San Diego. She was visiting her daughter who lives in Scottsdale. They took turns chanting “No Kings” while cradling their adorable, slightly overwhelmed dachshund.

The dog’s benevolent eyes seemed to say, “what are we all doing here?” All I could do was shrug and smile. There is no explaining all we have endured in this country over the past six months. Not to mention the previous eight or nine years.

A short while later, I turned to discover a man holding a profoundly-funny-and-literary sign. A parody of American poet Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. I imagine Frost would have loved it, if he had been alive and standing beside me.

I asked the man if I could take his picture. I told him it spoke to my wordsmithing sensibilities. He surprised me by saying he was a math guy.

I’ll likely never cross paths with him again. He’ll never know that my book of poetry, A Path I Might Have Missed, was inspired by my love for Robert Frost’s verses. But on June 14, 2025, we stood on the same page … on the same street corner … on the same shared path.

Together–close friends, like-minded acquaintances, and distant strangers–we proclaimed our desire and hope to rescue American democracy from the clutches of fascism.

Dad and Me

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Though he has been gone since 1993–taken by a second heart attack a week before his eightieth birthday–my dad still appears in fading photos on the walls and shelves of my Scottsdale condo … and in memories I carry.

In July 1959, I celebrated my second birthday with Dad in the basement of our suburban St. Louis home.

Like an earnest anthropologist combing for clues, I’ve kept Walter Johnson’s history and story–his highs and lows–alive. He lingers on the pages of all four of my books. The journalist and the son in me believe I’ve done right by him.

In spite of his traumas (World War II shellshock, bipolar rants, and heartache), I’ve long ago put Walter’s pain to rest. It no longer consumes me in my sixties.

It has been replaced by abundant compassion and appreciation for the man he was in his forties: enthusiastic, fun-loving, loyal, and truly patriotic.

I don’t think I’ve ever uttered or written the following sentence, but it’s time I did: I have never doubted my father’s love for me.

I certainly see and feel it in his eyes in this (now vintage) photograph my mother captured of Dad and me.

More than six decades later–in these desert-dwelling days I never imagined in my Midwestern life–I link the joyous and boundless expression on Dad’s face with a keepsake Tom and I wrapped carefully and brought with us in the backseat of our Hyundai Sonata when we came west in 2017.

It’s an electronic GB Means Good Beer advertising sign, which Walter the salesman salvaged from his days peddling products for Griesedieck Bros. Beer in the 1950s.

What follows is an excerpt from I Think I’ll Prune the Lemon Tree, which I published in early 2021.

***

In the early 60s before his first heart attack, Dad turned on the sign when company came over and we ventured into our basement. Long after he died, the sign’s magical light-and-color wheel spun and bounced a range of hues on a knotty-pine shelf downstairs in Missouri. Then later, it danced on top of the refrigerator in the kitchen of our suburban Chicago home.

Strangely, the wheel disengaged in 2017–somewhere on the road between Illinois and Arizona as I mended from a heart attack on the passenger side.

I wasn’t sure the sign would ever spin again, but I found a trusty repairman named Bob in Phoenix. He opened the back of the rectangular sign and tinkered with it. He told me he could reconnect the wheel to the track. I left Walter’s beer sign in Bob’s capable hands.

Bob called two days later to say the sign was working again. The following afternoon, Tom and I paid him. I thanked him for his time and trouble. We brought the sign home and found a suitable place to display it on the top of our bookcase in Scottsdale.

I plugged in the sign and turned on the switch. The light-and-color wheel twirled. The blues, reds, greens, and purples bounced, just as Walter had …

***

It comforts me to know that on Father’s Day–or any day–I can flip the switch in one simple motion. I can reignite the love I still feel for my father and remember his best intentions.

In an instant, I can remind myself that Dad is with me on my journey.

The Long Arc of Life

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The world is full of complicated and thorny problems. Perhaps it’s fitting that on Father’s Day Tom and I bought and brought home our own private potful–a tiny saguaro cactus (carnegiea gigantea)–from the Desert Botanical Garden.

Despite their prickly nature and my aversion to being stabbed by sharp objects, in my first three years of Arizona residency, I’ve come to feel comfort from the surrounding saguaro cacti. If you follow my blog, you know that. I’ve posted photos and a few poems about this fatherly tree-like species that is native to the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and Mexico.

Saguaros grow slowly. Our little guy … let’s call him Sammy Saguaro … stands no more than six inches tall, yet he’s probably at least ten or fifteen years old. They can grow to be forty to sixty feet in height and live one-hundred-and-fifty to two-hundred years.

Of course, I’ll never see Sammy grow into that stature, but I’m happy to watch him develop slowly. I like the idea of his anticipated longevity. Especially in this age of COVID-19, it’s good to remind ourselves of the long arc of life … where we were, how far we’ve come, how many setbacks we’ve endured, how far we hope to grow in the future.

Like in the 1990s, when my mother would measure the heights of Nick and Kirk against the side of her St. Louis pantry door when we visited from Chicago. She knew her grandsons would grow and go places. She wanted to mark their progress, see the smiles on their faces when they saw how far they’d advanced since the previous pencil marking. Since the previous visit. So did I.

I still feel that way about my sons. Even though they are now in their thirties and fully grown physically, I can see them slowly expanding their reach. Stretching toward the sky in an uncertain world a little at a time.

Each time I talk with one of them over the phone, I realize how far they have come. How far they have to go. That’s what it means to be a father. That’s also why it’s important that Sammy is standing outside our back door.

In this vein of remembering and marking growth, in spite of the pain of 2020, I’m reminded of an historic moment that occurred five years ago. This is what I wrote in From Fertile Ground on June 29, 2015 from Mount Prospect, Illinois.

In the scheme of things, it marked a remarkable, sharp, positive turn in our nation’s complicated history. One I’ll never forget. One I hope is never rescinded.

***

It’s a cool and wet June morning. In our front yard, the sparrows are fighting for position to pluck seeds from the perch of our bird feeder, dangling from a branch of our river birch. On our deck in the back, the first orange blossom of the summer has appeared and opened on our hibiscus tree. More color, more beauty, more promise.

I’ve been feeling more joyful since last Friday when the Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples can now be married in all fifty states. This is a civil rights triumph of monumental proportions. For gay people everywhere in the United States–and for future generations who will be born into a more open society–there is now the same equal opportunity to marry the person they love.

The day after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision, our friends Greg and Dan were married in Chicago. They had planned their marriage ceremony months ago to coincide with their twenty-fifth anniversary of when they became a couple. It was a boat ride on Lake Michigan with family and close friends.

Tom and I held hands on the top deck of the boat as we listened to them exchange their vows on a windswept-slightly cool but sunny Chicago afternoon. There were happy tears and raucous cheers for Greg and Dan, of course. It was their day and a long time in coming. But it was also our day to mark the occasion of a sharp positive turn in our nation’s complicated history.

Perhaps President Barack Obama best captured the spirit of this giant step forward immediately after the June 26, 2015 Supreme Court ruling. Appearing in the White House Rose Garden, he said:

This ruling is a victory for America. This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts. When all Americans are treated equal, we are all more free.

Fathers of the Desert

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Empirical and imperfect, you are the keepers of the west.

You bear fruit for mourning doves.

You guard cottontails and creosote.

You stand sturdy and erect.

You love, fear and forgive.

Your spiny symmetry shades our world.

You cast lengthy shadows.

You fall mightily.

You are the fathers of the desert.

You remember everything.

You forget nothing.

You are the proof of yesterday, the path of today, the hope for tomorrow.

Let It Commence

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We’re a day away from the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. But, based on the weather I experienced in Chicago this past week, you wouldn’t know summer is about to commence.

It was definitely a windbreaker week in the Windy City, where unpredictable weather abounds. Cool temperatures. Sporadic raindrops. Fog rolling in and out along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Just a fraction of the changeable weather I was familiar with when I lived in northern Illinois from 1980 to 2017.

The good news is none of it put a damper on my reason for being back in the “City of the Broad Shoulders” (thanks Carl Sandburg) for five days. I flew from Phoenix to Chicago with my husband for joyous reasons. We attended DePaul University’s 120th commencement. We celebrated my younger son’s latest achievement. Kirk can now add the designation Master of Education to his resume.

Last Saturday, the day before Father’s Day, I was one of several thousand proud family members and friends seated inside Wintrust Arena to share the moment with loved ones. The crowd included my older son Nick, who sat beside me. He and his girlfriend had also traveled back to Chicago to support his brother. It was a constant sea of smiles, cheers, blue caps and gowns as Kirk and the other beaming graduates crossed the stage one-by-one and accepted their diplomas during the commencement ceremony.

Incidentally, after this experience, I’ve decided I prefer the word “commencement” over “graduation”, because the former aptly describes the beginning of new opportunities … new doors opening in a person’s life that come with a significant achievement. (The latter feels more like an ending, a conclusion or a door closing after success.) At any rate, if you–or someone close to you–recently walked up to accept a diploma on any level, I wish you the greatest success in your next endeavor.

Summer is the perfect season for good things to commence. Warm breezes. Plenty of sun. A much-needed vacation. Perhaps even a little time to read a book just for the fun of it or explore a new degree or business venture you’ve been wanting to try. The one deep down inside you that keeps calling your name.

Go for it. Happy Summer. Let it commence.

 

 

 

 

A Father’s Wish List

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It was nearly two years ago that I found myself lying on a gurney at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. It was July 6, 2017. My sixtieth birthday. I had just suffered a mild heart attack and entered the vast and unfamiliar world of emergency room doctors, cardiologists, attending nurses, and multi-syllabic medical procedures.

I had two wishes that day: to survive the ordeal with my husband; and to speak with both of my adult sons to let them know I was okay. Thankfully, both of my wishes came true.

Late in the afternoon of July 6, Jacob, an EKG technician in his early thirties, turned me on my left side. He applied a cooling gel and ran a device across my chest to record images of my heart.

At that moment, Jacob gave me an unexpected gift that carried me past the immediate task and my pain. He confided in me that he was a new father adjusting to a sleepless existence. Working to raise and protect his newborn son. Overwhelmed by the sudden changes in his life.

Strange as it was–with my health hanging in the balance–Jacob and I entered a new landscape.  We talked about something we had in common. We were both dads. It was something like staring into a painted desert of fatherhood (like what you see here in Arizona) where unexplored layers of possibilities abound.

As I spoke with Jacob, I conjured fleeting memories of my two sons as tumbling toddlers and testy teens. I told him to hang in there and relish the early years. To try to realize that the heavy lifting of fatherhood would fade over time.

I told him there would be meaningful moments ahead with his son. Moments I cherished with my sons. Moments he might cherish with his boy too when he looked back over his life.

Occasionally, over the past two years, I’ve thought of Jacob and wondered how he was coping … knowing we will likely never meet again.

Now, with Father’s Day upon us, I wish I could offer him more ideas on what it takes to be a good dad. To that end, I’ve composed the following list … friendly advice from a fellow father who’s looking out for all the Jacobs in the world who are striving to be the best dads they can be.

***

Love your son … and tell him you do.

Listen to and validate his dreams.

Provide him with an honest and safe home.

Buy him nutritious food and encourage him to exercise.

Cheer him on when he succeeds. Encourage him when he fails.

Don’t spend a lot of money buying him new things. Spend it on shared experiences instead.

Teach him the importance of lifelong learning and saving money for a rainy day.

Show him what it means to respect animals, nature and diverse people.

Explain to him that it’s a sign of strength to ask questions and show vulnerability.

Love your son no matter who he loves. Remind him you’ll always be his dad.