October is bright and beautiful in central Arizona. The intense heat of summer is gone. Mornings and evenings are cooler.
Back in St. Louis, it was fortuitous that Tom and I decided to visit the Gateway Arch on September 22, because–with the U.S. government shutdown–the Arch and other park facilities across the country staffed by the National Park Service closed October 1. Who knows where this latest setback for the American people will lead?
Still, life goes on.
Beginning October 10, I will teach another memoir writing workshop at Mustang Library in Scottsdale. Tom is leading a film series, called Hollywood Laughs, at the same location on Thursday afternoons until mid-November.
Meanwhile, fall chorus rehearsals are underway for our next Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus (PHXGMC) concert, Let Your Spirit Sparkle, in December at the Orpheum Theatre. I will wear my blue sparkly vest on stage again. This 2025/2026 concert season is my sixteenth consecutive year singing with gay choruses in Chicago and Phoenix. It is a vital part of my life.
Under the dynamic leadership of Antonio and Darlene–our artistic director and assistant artistic director respectively–PHXGMC has grown to more than 150 diverse members. Our voices will be strong when we march in the Phoenix Pride Parade on October 19.
Next month, Kirk will visit us in Arizona for a few days. Even as the mayhem in our country spreads, Tom and I look forward to gathering with Nick and him. We will enjoy a few quiet hours with both of my sons in our newly remodeled, freshly painted desert home.
We will give thanks for our fortunate lives, good health, and meaningful artistic opportunities in our sixty-something years, which have enabled us to have a positive impact on the lives of others in our community.
It was a bright September Tuesday morning. Clear skies, mild temperatures, and low humidity. A perfect day in the Chicago suburbs.
At around 7:30 on September 11, 2001, I pulled up to the curb at Lincoln Junior High to drop off Kirk, my twelve-year-old son. He scampered ahead and waved goodbye.
Forty-four-year-old me drove to the nearby RecPlex for a quick swim at the indoor pool. On the way to the locker room to change, I saw a small cluster of folks gathered silently around a TV.
A plane had just struck the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Dire images of smoke and debris filled the sky.
Minutes later, a second plane pierced the south tower. It was just the beginning of the madness.
Terror spread quickly through the skies to crash scenes at two other sites: the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Captivated and numb in disbelief near the vending machines in the lobby hundreds of miles away, we stood dumbfounded and helpless–gaping in September’s stillness–as ripples of the horrific news and images unfolded.
Ultimately, 2,977 victims died that day, casualties of the September 11 attacks at the hands of eighteen foreign hijackers and many more strategists who infiltrated American skies.
Thousands more were injured and sustained life-long trauma, including citizens and rescue workers exposed to toxins at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan in New York.
***
It’s been twenty-four years. We are still trying to make sense of how much we lost, how much our lives changed, that day.
I don’t mean the inconveniences of air travel. Yes, that’s a pain.
Much worse, gun violence, school shootings, assassinations, and homegrown terrorism are the norm in the United States. Through it all, we have become as divided as ever.
Just yesterday, the latest two unrelated horrors–one a school shooting near Denver, the other the assassination of a vocal, right-wing protagonist–dominated the news cycle.
The solution is obvious. We need to remember our traumas and learn from them. Institute tighter gun laws in this country, not more thoughts and prayers.
I do believe our leaders have failed us. We have voted the wrong ones into positions of authority. Instead of quieting the storm and pulling us together, they are threatening those who don’t agree with them.
If we don’t make changes soon, our legacy will be continued bloodshed, not the freedom, opportunities, and equality we have espoused as a nation for generations.
***
My twelve-year-old son is now thirty-six and living in Chicago. He is a therapist. Kirk specializes in helping individuals who have experienced some sort of trauma.
I couldn’t be prouder of Kirk and the work he is doing. At a young age, I witnessed his kindness, his empathy toward classmates, neighbors, and family members.
Now he is honing his skills, while providing relief to those who need it most in American society.
I try to do the same through my writing. Telling the stories as I see them but leaving you with a glimmer of insight, relief and hope.
If there was one positive thing that sprang from the 9/11 attacks, it was the way our nation coalesced–at least in the short term–around the victims, their families, their stories in 2001.
As a nation, we were forced to take a breath as we dug through the rubble. We forged ahead to provide a salve to treat the psychological trauma we all felt.
Somehow, in 2025, we have lost our wits. We have forgotten how to love the less fortunate, protect our children, and teach them to be critical thinkers rather than conspiracy theorists.
We had better wake up fast, pass gun laws, rediscover our compassion, and find our better selves soon.
“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.
In my late sixties, I am more aware of what remains in my gas tank.
Not the fuel gauge on our 2012 Hyundai Sonata. I’m talking about the physical and mental energy needed to maneuver life … while keeping a little extra for the seminal moments.
In the span of one week, I am celebrating Kirk’s and Jen’s (my younger son and future-daughter-in-law) engagement with family in Illinois (it already happened June 1) and taking the stage with my chosen Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus family (June 6 and 7 is our raucous Rhinestone Rodeo show) at Tempe Center for the Arts in Arizona.
Both are deeply personal and rewarding.
Seeing my thirty-six-year-old son and his future bride beaming and greeting loved ones on the second floor of a popular neighborhood eatery on Chicago’s northwest side touched me. But there was more to it than that.
Because, there was a culmination of lives … past, present, and future.
Like Tom and me, my older son Nick and his girlfriend Anastasia flew in from Arizona for the festivities … and my sister Diane and brother-in-law Steve were there, too.
Though they live in the Chicago area, they each have difficulty managing stairs. Even so, diligently, they found a way to make the climb to a private dining room inside Zia’s Social. One small step at a time for the sake of a milestone moment with family.
There was another significant emotional layer to the event for me.
Jean, my ex, planned the party. Over the past few decades, we have been in the same room just a few times. At my mother’s funeral. At Kirk’s graduation. Our communication has been sparse at best.
But, at this stage of life, it feels life much of the animosity that existed between us after our divorce in 1992 has dissipated. We have both moved on. We have found vastly different lives with our respective husbands. Ironically, both of them are named Tom.
Bottom line, this engagement party was a joyous and healing experience for me … and I suspect others. There will be another one on August 29, 2026, at Kirk’s and Jen’s wedding. Also, in Chicago.
Now that my Tom and I are back in Scottsdale, I have been rehearsing each night this week. Conserving my energy while putting the smoothing touches on our music.
More than thirty of our Arizona friends–many of them straight allies–will be in the audience this weekend. They will fill the seats you see here alongside hundreds of others.
Smiling. Cheering. Laughing. Crying. Phenomenal music has a way of spurring it all. Touching our hearts and souls in ways we … gay or straight … never imagined.
Make no mistake. The nearly 1,500 who attend our shows this weekend will be entertained by our mix of past and present country western hits … coalescing with our brand of giant gay swirls thrown in for good measure.
Naturally, the pink fringe vest and new black boots I’ve bought for the shows … and will be wearing … will be made for more than walking and singing.
They’ll be carrying me through the two-steppin’ choralography … anchoring me on the top riser (through Pink Pony Club, Ya’ll Means All, Texas Hold ‘Em and much more) with love, gratitude, and pride for a week in June 2025 that will always be dear to me.
January 1984 felt promising, but exceptionally cold, in the Chicago area.
Jean was due to deliver our first child on January 17. But that day–and several more–passed with no consequential developments. Just a few rounds of snowfall.
Late on January 23, Jean went into labor. When we arrived at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, the nurses examined her. They told us it would be several hours before our child was born.
Jean and I weren’t prepared for the day-and-night-long ordeal that followed. After twenty-three hours of labor, Dr. P pulled me aside.
At that point, he was worried that a traditional delivery would place Jean and our unborn child at risk. He recommended Plan B: an emergency C-section.
Jean was scared; I was worried about her welfare. I insisted on staying during the operation (masked up on the other side of a curtain, away from the medical staff, while they performed the procedure). The doctor agreed it was a good idea for me to be there for emotional support.
A short time later, at 11:37 p.m. on January 24–twenty-three minutes until midnight–our son Nick arrived intact. Jean was okay, too, but totally spent. We both breathed relief.
Our newborn son wailed as the nurses wrapped him in a blanket. His head was slightly misshapen from the birthing process, but they told us not to worry. They laid Nick across Jean’s chest. We had a healthy son.
Jean and Nick stayed at Lutheran General for a few days, which was protocol for the time. Several days later, we signed a few papers, and prepared to leave the hospital.
Jean cradled Nick in a wheelchair that morning. A nurse pushed them down the hall. I pressed the elevator button, carried flowers, and juggled a few possessions as the doors opened.
An older man already onboard smiled as we descended to the ground floor. He wished a good life for our newborn son.
We exited the building. I walked ahead in the cold to bring our car around while Jean and Nick waited with the nurse at the curb. The sun shimmered on a dusting of snow from the night before.
Day-old Nick and me at Lutheran General Hospital on the morning of January 25, 1984.
***
When Nick was born in 1984, I didn’t expect his mom and I would split eight years later. But we did in 1992, just three years after Kirk (his younger brother) was born.
In the aftermath, my sons spent Monday and Wednesday nights–and every other weekend–with me (Tuesday and Thursday nights with their mom) until they were teenagers when they each opted for a home base with Jean. Thanksgivings were with me; Christmases with her. Two vacations occurred every summer. One with her. One with me.
On “Dad nights and weekends” in the early 90s, my boys and I devoured pizza in our cramped apartment in Arlington Heights and on cold, gray days swam in the indoor pool. It was a cheap way to have fun and burn off energy.
During the school year, with their backpacks in tow, we grabbed donuts downstairs in the apartment lobby on the way out the door.
I dropped Nick off at Kids’ Corner (before-and-after-school program), then hustled Kirk off to preschool before I commuted into Chicago’s Loop for work.
Looking back, it was a tumultuous period of disarray, intimacy, and estrangement for all of us. Nonetheless, somehow, we survived. We found our rhythm as a family straddling two homes.
In 1996, I saved enough for a down payment on a modest three-bedroom home nearby. Nick, Kirk and I played catch in the backyard and tossed the football on the open field across the street.
That same year, I met Tom and introduced him to my sons. I know that Nick–particularly as a teenager–felt uncomfortable with having a dad who was different. But, in spite of it, he knew I loved him.
We weren’t your prototypical American family, but with time we found our stride and Nick and Kirk accepted Tom and me.
At first, our basset hound Maggie (we adopted her in 1998) was the comic-relief glue that adhered us.
With time, that connectivity broadened. We found more in common: birthday celebrations; grounding visits with their wise and supportive grandma in St. Louis; fun and thought-provoking movies with Tom and me in the Chicago suburbs.
Not long after Nick–and then Kirk–graduated from college, Maggie died. We all mourned her loss in 2008.
Tom and I knew at the time that our parents wouldn’t be far behind. The nest emptied quickly. They were all gone by 2015.
That same year, at age thirty-one, Nick asked if he could rent our Arizona condo while he looked for a job out west. He needed a change. He wanted to chart his own course, away from the cold, heavy responsibility of the Midwest.
Nick began a new life that January (two years before Tom and I made Scottsdale, Arizona, our permanent home) when he landed a job with a technology company in March.
Over the past nine years, I’ve watched my son’s confidence and self-esteem multiply. He has a good life here.
Of course, during that period, he’s changed jobs and apartments, discovered new loves and suffered a few losses.
But Nick is happier in the sunnier Southwest. And I’m happy that I get to see him occasionally.
After I suffered a heart attack in July 2017 on the way west, Nick helped Tom move some of our bulkier pieces of furniture.
It gave me solace seeing them bond more deeply as I struggled to regain my strength and equilibrium.
Life so far in 2024 is good for all of us. Kirk is planning to visit us in Scottsdale in March. He lives in Chicago and has found a rewarding life as a trauma counselor. He needs a warm escape now and then to stay sharp.
In spite of the vast distance, my younger son and I have managed to deepen our relationship and stay close. As Kirk quarantined in his Chicago apartment during Covid, Tom and I played Scrabble with him online and Zoomed from time to time.
We talk frequently now. Whenever we do, I realize how lucky I am to have two smart and compassionate sons who are contributing members of society.
A few weeks ago, Nick stopped by and watched Oppenheimer with Tom and me. On other occasions, we’ve shared ballgames and dinners or picked ripe citrus fruits off our condo community trees (Nick loves grapefruit).
Next week, Nick and his girlfriend Anastasia will join Tom and me for dinner to celebrate his birthday at a local Scottsdale restaurant he’s been wanting to try.
No doubt, we’ll raise a glass. We’ll toast his first forty years. We’ll recall Nick’s journey west to discover a warmer life of promise.
As a dad, I will always be there for my sons. I’m glad I stuck it out during those trying years in the 90s, because seeing them become who they are–full-fledged adults–is the most gratifying part of fatherhood.
Nearly ten years have passed since she passed January 26, 2013.
As this seismic anniversary of my mother’s death approaches, I feel a degree of grief’s numbness reappearing.
The time is right for me to sprinkle this space with reflections on Helen F. Johnson’s life: how much I loved her; what I learned from her; and why I still miss her.
I watched my mother grow in wisdom and shrink in physical presence–simultaneously–in her final ten years.
In those poetic moments–especially 2004 to 2009 when we visited at her condo in Winfield, Illinois–the two observations felt incongruent as we sat side by side on a park bench reflecting on her love of family, nature, photography, and letter writing.
But they don’t anymore.
Now that I’ve surpassed the midpoint of my sixties–favoring the quietest moments of life over all the rest–I see and feel the same transformation happening within me.
I’m far more inclined to record the moments that happen around me, because–like her–I have the time and the interest. She has left me an invaluable gift: a recognizable path and impulse to emulate.
My life has changed immensely since she died. I’ve retired from corporate life, married Tom, moved across the country, survived a heart attack, lost forty pounds, written four books, endured Covid, and built a new life in the desert.
Yet, it is when Tom and I spend time with my sons Nick and Kirk–her only grandchildren–that I am most aware of how long she has been gone and how much she loved us all.
They were both in their twenties in 2013. Searching. Unsettled. Preparing to launch. On the cusp of new personal discoveries and adventures. Since that time, they’ve traveled, found new loves, new jobs, new homes.
Kirk is now nearly 34; Nick almost 39. How she–a lover of plants and trees–would have loved learning that her oldest grandson stopped by our condo last Friday to pluck grapefruits, oranges, lemons, and tangelos from our citrus trees.
Or that Nick coached a Boys and Girls Club basketball team last year.
Or that Kirk traveled to Vanuatu with the Peace Corps in 2014 and more recently has found his counseling stride in a small practice in Chicago … helping patients who’ve experienced some sort of trauma.
Over this past weekend, Tom and I watched Milo and Miley (a friend’s two Shih Tzus) again.
The dogs are sweet, lovable characters. But I needed a little time to escape on Sunday to my thoughts and devices. So, I drove to Chaparral Park and walked around the lake for about an hour.
As I rounded a bend of pine trees which Tom and I love, I spotted an older man. He sat quiet, content, and alone on a park bench.
Seeing him reminded me of the moments my mother cherished in her eighties, pondering the world from a park bench. She could simply sit, enjoy the shade of the trees, read the newspaper or gaze at passersby.
Or she could wonder about the lives of her children and grandchildren … long after she was gone.
The Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the U.S. is winding down. All over America, houseguests are preparing to pack their bags, return home, and file away memories of time with friends and family.
Our three-day adventure with Milo and Miley in our Scottsdale condo is drawing to a close. While our friend Austin visited family in Colorado, his lovable, ever-licking Shih Tzu pups followed us around the house, slept with us, tumbled on the floor, paraded on leashes near ripening fruit on citrus trees, and–occasionally–barked at passersby.
They even got to meet and play with Kirk and Nick my thirty-something sons, who joined Tom and me on Thursday for turkey, green beans, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple crisp, and World Cup viewing/prognosticating in our humble abode.
To be sure, the holidays are all about family. I’m thankful Tom and I had time with my sons. But it’s also about the furry friends (permanent or otherwise) that grace our lives, make us laugh, wake us at 5:30 … and even attempt to practice morning yoga before they return to the comfort and familiarity of their forever home.
Miley and Milo couldn’t quite get the hang of downward facing dog, but they sure enjoyed licking my face while I stretched on our sunroom floor.
Kirk and I talked this morning. Every few weeks–usually on Sunday mornings–we connect via phone.
My thirty-three-year-old son is a kind counselor, who lives in Chicago. He lives a full, demanding life. He has navigated the Covid years on his own. I continue to do my best to bolster him from afar.
I always look forward to our conversations. Kirk tells me what’s happening in his world. I tell him what’s happening in mine. He’s planning a trip to Portugal at the end of March with a friend. The trip has been postponed twice due to the global pandemic. We both hope the third time is the charm.
Kirk is the adventurer in our family. He volunteered with the Peace Corps–taught English to children in Vanuatu on the island of Tanna in the South Pacific–in 2014 and 2015. He hasn’t traveled abroad since then due to Covid and career demands.
I admire Kirk’s sense of wonder. He told me he’s missed the opportunity to explore new worlds; to get lost in unfamiliar cultures. I could hear the loss in his voice.
While news of the war in Ukraine rages on, and we global citizens are catapulted into the uncertainty of another international drama, I think it’s likely that many will deny or try to forget the pain of the past two years. But we can’t and we shouldn’t.
At the very least, each of us must have a personal reckoning to account for the pain, anxiety, disruption, and multitude of losses. This is something I’ve contemplated for a while. This weekend it has surfaced more clearly.
During my conversation with Kirk, I recounted my Saturday with Tom. I told him I sang with my Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus pals at the Melrose Street Fair. It’s a lively community event in Phoenix that has gone missing for two years–for obvious reasons.
As I stood on the stage yesterday on a partly sunny and breezy morning–with Tom and a group of our close friends watching and listening–the last two years came flooding back.
Why? Because our chorus performed at the same event two years ago. It was right before the world stopped spinning and we all retreated. I will always remember the pain of that. None of us knew the magnitude and length of the tidal wave of fear and uncertainty that was coming. Somehow, we endured.
Yesterday’s moment was one to embrace and celebrate. Like a long, lost friend missing in action, the world felt suddenly alive as we sang. I wasn’t sure when or if I would feel that free again. But I did.
As I retold this story to Kirk on the phone, my tears appeared out of nowhere. The full emotion of Saturday’s reawakening arrived on Sunday morning with my younger son listening attentively seventeen hundred miles away.
Though it wasn’t in person, I am thankful that Kirk and I had a few moments of reckoning together. Like all of us who have lived through the darkness, we have earned the time and space to reflect and process all of the madness.
I hope my son is able to re-ignite his passion for travel in Portugal and find a little solace … maybe even realize a dream in an unfamiliar place in late March.
Ironic or not, one of the songs our chorus sang yesterday was Come Alive from The Greatest Showman. Let the lyrics wash over you and rekindle your best instincts. We have all earned the reckoning.
***
And the world becomes a fantasy, and you’re more than you could ever be,
’cause you’re dreamin’ with your eyes wide open.
And you know you can’t go back again to the world that you were livin’ in,
’cause you’re dreamin’ with your eyes wide open.
So come alive!
Tom captured this moment as the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus prepared to perform at the Melrose Street Fair on March 5, 2022.
Like the shape of the last two digits in the number of this post–300 since I began blogging in May 2018–life has a way of bringing me full circle.
No matter how much I’ve changed, it’s uncanny how frequently I find myself redeposited into situations that remind me where I’ve been. I’ve learned the secret is recognizing and marveling at the serendipity.
Case in point: throughout the 1990s, I spent most winter Saturday mornings watching my two boys–Nick and Kirk–play basketball in northwest suburban Chicago at the RecPlex. It’s a community recreational facility in Mount Prospect, Illinois.
Back in those Michael Jordan years–when number 23 led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships–my older son Nick found his stride on the basketball court.
Typically, Nick played point guard in his grade school years. He was adept at handling the ball, shooting three-pointers, and making clutch decisions on the court. When the game was on the line, his coach wanted Nick to have the ball. I was his proud dad cheering from the stands.
Nick went on to play basketball for two years in high school. After he graduated in 2002, it became more of a hobby. Through his twenties and early thirties, he enjoyed the spontaneity of pick-up games whenever he could find the time. It was his escape from the grind of the world.
In January 2015, Nick moved to the Valley of the Sun for a fresh and warm start away from cold winters. He loves it here, but in September 2017 (just two months after my mild heart attack), my son suffered a severe knee injury on a Saturday while playing basketball.
Nick was out of commission for an extended period. I remember Tom and I escorted him to buy crutches, so he could navigate the stairs of his second-floor apartment. After surgery and months of therapy, he regained his mobility. He no longer presses his luck on the court, but Nick’s love for the game continues.
Two years ago, in the earliest days of Covid, Nick met Tom and me to shoot baskets and play H-O-R-S-E on an outdoor court in Tempe. It was one of the things the three of us did to stay sane. Soon that went away. All of the courts were roped off for most of 2020. It was one of many losses. You’re a citizen in this Covid world. You know the drill.
I’ve always imagined my son would end up coaching at some point. In fact, I’ve encouraged him to do so. About a month ago, he told me he had contacted the Boys and Girls Club in Scottsdale. They were looking for a coach for fifth and sixth graders. So, Nick has found a new route back to the court.
In early January, it all came full circle for Nick. The player became the coach and began to lead practices with the kids after school on Tuesdays. They lost their first game on January 15, but he and the kids had fun anyway.
Though I’m now in my sixties, I will always be a dad. In fact, I find the role richer now. When Nick’s younger brother Kirk called from Chicago in December to tell me he would start a new full-time role as a counselor in January, I cheered from afar.
I’ve watched Kirk grow, stood by him, encouraged him when he joined the Peace Corps, applauded when he flew to the other side of the world in 2014, and worried when he endured a cyclone that ravaged his island in Vanuatu in 2015. Fortunately, he made it through safely.
I know my endorsement of Nick’s new venture is just as important. It doesn’t have to be a trip to a remote island. I’m thrilled for him and intrigued where this latest gig might lead.
Last Saturday–nearly thirty years since I watched Nick swish baskets on the courts in Illinois–Tom joined me in the bleachers of a Scottsdale community center to root quietly for Coach Nick.
We got to see Nick walk through a new door and find new light (like what you see in this photo I captured on Saturday), at a time when all of us are searching for something that relights our hope and passion.
Tom and I were there for Nick’s first win. The final score was 35-10. His squad of ten- and eleven-year-old boys got trounced in the second game on Saturday, but Nick was still happy with his team’s progress.
Tonight, Tom and I are taking Coach Nick out for dinner to celebrate. It’s his thirty-eighth birthday. I’m not sure where all the years went, but I know fatherhood is sweeter in these twilight years.
No writer wants to be known as a one-trick pony. Yes, to this point I’ve written mostly creative nonfiction, but each of my four books includes flashes of poetry. And, in my latest book of essays–home grown on the metaphor of pruning a lemon tree in my desert community–I also dabble in fiction.
In other words, I have no problem branching out into the great beyond of fruit trees. Grapefruits, for instance.
Here in our Polynesian Paradise condo community we live among lemon, tangelo, orange, fig, and lime trees … even a lone pomegranate. But we are surrounded by a bumper crop of pink and white grapefruits that will be ready to pick in late December. They are a far cry from the maple, elm, magnolia, oak, and gingko trees of my Midwestern past, which will be bare soon.
I’m not a fan of grapefruits. They’re too tart for my palette. Plus, if I ate them they would counteract the positive effects of the statin medication I take to keep my cholesterol count in the normal range.
However, Nick–my older son who lives near us–craves these tangy softball-size citruses. (I remember my dad loving grapefruits too. In fact, Nick resembles him. It’s funny how certain likes, physical qualities, and personality traits skip a generation.)
This afternoon I texted Nick this photo with a grapefruit update: “You’ll be happy to know the grapefruits are shaping up. They’ll be ripe in a month or so.”
“Oh nice” was Nick’s laconic response.
As the citrus-plucking season draws nearer in Arizona, here’s a snippet from I Think I’ll Prune the Lemon Tree, my book of whimsical and serious essays available in Kindle and paperback on Amazon.
***
Nick is especially enamored with the citrus trees—most notably, the plethora of grapefruits that dominate our condo complex grounds. In December and January each year, Nick the Citrus King contacts me frequently concerning the status of the ripening citrus crops. His texts or phone conversations begin something like this:
“Hey there. Are the grapefruits ripe enough to pick?” There is no preliminary happy talk such as “How are you feeling, Dad?” before the citrus cross-examination.
Aware of Nick’s citrus sensibilities and no-frills communication style, in January 2020—as a belated Christmas present—Tom and I surprised him with his own fiberglass fruit picker. We gave him one with a durable steel trap and extendable arm, which would extend his reach to grab the largest orbs clinging to the highest branches in a galaxy far beyond low-hanging fruits.
Upon receiving his gift, Nick’s smile grew three sizes. With the flexible picker in one hand and a few empty bags in the other, he and I set out to corral a selection of the sweetest and juiciest citrus delicacies we could find in the common areas of our complex.
Twenty minutes later, we returned to the condo with a mix of white and pink grapefruits, tangelos, lemons, and oranges. Harry & David would have been proud to grow, pick, and ship them to Vitamin-C-starved customers in cold-and-gray winter climates.
Without a crystal ball or a notion of where to find a citrus psychic, I have no way of knowing where Nick’s quest for fresh grapefruit will lead. But I am gratified to see him plucking fruits from the sky and flourishing in his Arizona life despite the heat.
Mark Johnson Stories 