Decision

Dec. 31st, 2017 04:45 pm
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In the basement workshop, where I haven't been in weeks, are the neatly stacked pieces of a complete tool stand based on the design of the work benches which my grandson and I constructed over the summer.

The tool stand was supposed to be one of the final pieces of shop equipment to be built before we took on whatever might be requested by his mom's or my daughter's households or might simply occur to us as something interesting or fun to build.

But once the summer was over, and school had started again, there was always a reason why it was inconvenient for him to come here to work, earn a couple of bucks, and maybe learn a few things.

And so, our "future last project" has sat and gathered dust, leaning against the layout table where I had supposed he would mark up the pieces for drilling and final assembly.

Once or twice, in the interim, I tried to motivate him by explaining that this project was important to me, not just as the building of a new workshop, but as part of an ongoing effort to build a new life for myself.

Because of that, I told him, I might have to go ahead with its completion on my own, if he was unable or unwilling to find the time to help. But that I didn't want to do that because I had always intended for the completed workshop to be "ours."

And so it's sat. And I have sat, watching the hours and days slip by as they tend to do, whether well-used or serving only as the monotonous markers of an unfulfilling and directionless life.

Now, on the eve of a New Year, that universal marker of beginnings and endings of things, I've made a decision.

I've decided that I'm going to put this project away and go ahead with other things. I know that I need to get my own life moving and that I can't place the burden or responsibility for that on anyone else, including my grandson.

But I also can't bring myself to give up the hope that one day, on his own, he may decide to re-engage with what we started together. At least to the extent of completing this last piece of it.

Until then it will sit, as time and this life passes it by. And that's the last that I'm going to say about it...

LPK
Dreamwidth
12.31.2017


Lucky

Feb. 28th, 2016 11:46 am
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My grandson Jason is at his mom's again this weekend. But I did see him early this morning due to a text message that lit up my phone about 10 minutes after I'd gotten up. It said, "Poppa, can you bring me some clean cloths?"

Me: What kind of cloths? Dish cloths, cleaning cloths, face cloths, what?

Him: What ru talking about?

Me: I r talking about how a 7th grader should know the difference between "clothes" and "cloths."

Him: Oh. Well can you bring them?

Me: And how a 7th grader should've told me to bring this stuff last night when I drove all the way out to his mom's house to take him to his soccer game.

Him: OK I get it.

Me: And how texting shorthand is killing the English language. Even American English.

Him: OK, OK.

[a pause in the exchange; a moment of digital silence]

Me: Alright, I'll bring them.

Him: Thanks.

When I got there, it was obvious that he was the only one who was up. In the household. Or the neighborhood. Maybe on this side of the freakin' Canadian border.

Even so, I guess I should feel lucky that he still feels that he can call on me for stuff like this.

And I guess I do...

LPK
LiveJournal
2.28.2016

Undefeated

Oct. 21st, 2015 09:09 pm
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The Henninger Black Knights boys modified soccer team played their last game of the 2015 season against West Genesee this afternoon and won 5 goals to 1. Which I think, in effect, makes them league champions since they beat the only previously-undefeated team last week by a score of 3-1.

An interesting aspect of these wins, which we noticed early-on, was that even when our opponents matched up well with our starters our second team was almost always so much better than theirs that we were virtually guaranteed the win. In the end, our starters almost always wore the opposition down, but there was at least one game when our starters were outscored by our second team.

With today's win, I'm told, this is Coach Bardenett's 5th undefeated season. The nice thing is, the great thing for the kids, is that he's such a humble man, a great role model who doesn't run up the score when he clearly can. He expects the highest level of sportsmanship from his players and exemplifies that on the field.

Congratulations, Coach, and thanks for a great season!

LPK
LiveJournal
10.21.2015 
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The grandson and his Henninger Black Knights modified soccer team took on the Fayetteville-Manlius Hornets in their home opener on Friday at Huntington School. F-M scored first but the Knights continuously pressured their opponent's goal and had a number of shots that were either slightly high, slightly wide, or stopped by the goalie.

About midway through the first half, the second squad was subbed-in for Henninger and they immediately scored two quick goals which obviously stunned the visitors and their fans. As they had earlier, the Knights kept up the pressure on both offense and defense and the half ended with the score Henninger 2, F-M 1.

Henninger opened the second half with their starters back on the field and this time they scored to make it a 3-1 game. Again, at midway through the half, the second squad came in for Henninger. This time they held their own but had some lapses, on both offense and defense, which could've been game-changers if siezed-on by the visitors.

With control of the game now hotly contested in its final minutes, the starters were sent back in to finish the half and bring home the 3-1 victory.

All things considered, it was a pretty good game. This team, which has been together for barely three weeks, is obviously a work in progress. And with the outdoor soccer season so compressed, they're going to have to develop quickly. Next week, they have three games, two of them away. After that, they have two games a week for each of the remaining three weeks of the season.

Jason did well, was called out by the coach for a great assist on the second-half goal, and after the game we were stopped by one of the F-M moms who complimented Jason and the team on their amazing skills. As usual, he was too embarassed to respond, so I said "thanks" on his behalf. She obviously read the situation and we both laughed.

Hopefully, as these kids get used to playing as a team, learn each other's skills and tendencies, we'll have some success out on the road where we'll be next week vs. Auburn and West Genesee. There's also a chance that Jason and Cyrus will meet up with another of their SDA teammates at West Genny, which should be interesting...

LPK
LiveJournal
9.26.2015 (a)
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It was an absolutely gorgeous day, out in the valley. The artificial turf was bright green, because that's how they'd colored it at the factory, and the sunlight shone with special intensity on the Black Knights of Henninger High School. But still cast shadows, like with everyone else.

Jason and Cyrus, his teammate and friend from SDA, were the starting forwards and each scored in the lopsided win over Corcoran High School's modified soccer team. Cyrus scored two goals, Jason scored one, and they both played their positions well, with good movement up and down the field, and good transitions from offense to defense.

About midway through the first half, the second team was sent in with the exception of the goalkeeper. And by the end of the half the score was 4-nil in favor of the Knights.

At the start of the second half, the regular goalie was pulled and one of the kids from the second team was put in his place. Also, the starting forwards were put back in the third line as defenders, both strategies intended to give the over-matched Corcoran kids a chance to score and have a little fun.

Which they eventually did. And the really cool thing was that our kids and coaches actually celebrated with them after their goal. And that's what I like about these coaches. They're all about sportsmanship and playing well as a team, whether in the daily training routine or playing a game. So congratulations and many thanks to Coaches Bardanett and Frederick.

Jason seemed relatively happy with his play and I think opening the season with a scrimmage against another city team was a great idea. In scrimmages, the refs, coaches, and players recognize it as a teaching situation. Players are instructed in pre-game and post-game etiquette, play is stopped when something needs to be addressed, with the coaches actually coming out on the playing field, and, as previously mentioned, sportsmanship is emphasized.

In some ways, it's been a bit of a bumpy road getting here but, as I told Jason this morning, I'm really glad we've made the effort because the process and the experience have differed significantly from the community and club experiences that he's had thus far.

Next up, our home opener vs. Fayetteville-Manlius this Friday at 4:30 PM. This one should be much more competitive and will hopefully result in our next steps forward as a team. Go Knights!

LPK
LiveJournal
9.24.2015
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This morning, I got up at 6 AM, made coffee, took my meds, got myself dressed, and then made sure that the grandson responded to the cheery wake-up call he'd installed on his cell phone to get him up on school days.

"Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, no, not that sugary crap your dad buys for himself and your little brother, check your book bag, pack your soccer bag, here, try on last year's compression shorts to see if they still fit, oh, they don't, well, I guess that tells me what I'm doing this morning." That was how the basically one-sided conversation went, punctuated by periodic groans from the unenthused listener.

Then, at 7:20, we were out the door and, after dropping him off at Huntington K-8 School, I jumped on the highway and headed east of the city for Walmart and Target.

Near the end of the summer, as things were winding down with his SDA club team, we decided to have him try out for his school's modified (7th and 8th grades) boy's soccer team. This would be Jason's first experience with a school sports team and, because of our late decision, we had to jump through some hoops (or a certain backward-facing body orifice) to make it happen.

At least that's what the folks in the school office had led us to believe. After we'd shredded our previously-made plans, and thereby introduced further chaos into our already dysfunctional lives, we were assured by his coaches that none of that had really been necessary. Still, it was obvious that other challenges lay directly ahead, albeit of an athletic nature.

Due to budget problems which had arisen several years ago, when the state's newly-elected governor took the unprecedented step of attempting to balance the budget, a substantial chunk of the state's aid to New York's cash-strapped cities had been withheld and local school districts had, in turn, reduced funding for sports and other extra-curriculars.

To avoid eliminating sports altogether, the Syracuse city schools responded by dividing the district into east and west and the several middle schools in each half of the city were formed into combined teams for the two areas. Which meant that on our side of town three middle schools, Grant, Huntington, and Lincoln, would send 7th and 8th graders to try out for a single boy's modified soccer team. In all, 52 kids showed up to try out for 22 positions.

The result being that many kids, among them the most needy, would be effectively deprived of any reasonable hope of participation. In addition, Syracuse is now host to a large and growing immigrant population, many of whom come from countries where soccer is the only sport available to kids. And, while I'm all for being a gracious and welcoming host, in this traditional land of opportunity, I think we need to balance our generosity to others with our ability to provide for our own. The expression, "Charity begins at home" comes to mind here.

Anyway, despite Jason's fairly long and intensive involvement with the sport, it was gonna be a challenge. And then, two days into the tryouts, he got sick and missed the next two days. Jeeeez! So I emailed one of the coaches, explained our caution, vis-a-vis the asthma, and begged for a stay of execution. Granted. Whew! (And he had made the cut anyway.)

For the next two days, he performed really well, good speed, good ball handling, good aggresiveness on defense. But on the second afternoon, when I stopped by to pick him up, I saw him bent over on the sidelines looking like he was trying to shake something off. An effing groin pull. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? Was it because I'd said that Luis Suarez was lower than whale poop for trying to bite off another guy's ear in the World Cup? C'mon, soccer gods, he was picked up by Barcelona after that, became a vegetarian, and rehabilitated his career. No harm, no foul, right?

Apparently, the gods don't listen to whiners because Jason still missed another day. Which necessitated another supplication by email, the promise that we'd again rest him over the weekend, and that we'd make every effort to have him back by Monday, ready to play. Which, somehow, he was. And made the final cut for the team. Along with 5 out of the original 12 from his school. Thank you, soccer gods. (Although, for the record, I still think Luis Suarez is a chump.)

For two more days, he battled to move up from the "B" team to the "A" team. And did that, as well. (I'm pretty sure that if he hadn't missed 3 out of the first 7 days that the team was together, he'd have been "A" team from day one.)

So yesterday was uniform day and, as they were being handed out, travel instructions were also given for today's scrimmage against the west side team on their home turf over in the The Valley. In a way, it'll be a sort of homecoming for me because it's at the school where I used to take our oldest daughters for indoor swimming, almost 40 years ago.

Anyway, I came up empty at Walmart--they'd totally turned over their seasonal stock which, I suppose, could reasonably include soccer shorts, but had replaced most of their teen athletic gear with everyday wear for elementary and pre-school kids. So, on to Target where I found Jason's compression shorts and the black outer shorts to match his uniform shirt.

All of which are now laundered, folded, and placed in his 90-pound soccer bag which, I'm convinced, is what actually cause his groin injury. Right now, it's strapped to a hand truck, ready to roll out the door for his first game as a scholastic modified soccer player...

LPK
LiveJournal
9.23.2015 
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Grandson Jason and I had temporarily, I guess, renewed our agreement to read together as a sort of end of summer preparation for the start of school. We had taken on Amelia Lost and were nearly though it when he started overnighting at his mom's. Which, once more, put an end to our reading together.

He had regained some fluency, near the end of that, and I think we can actually finish the book in one or two sessions today. Which would be good because classes start tomorrow in the city schools and we'll be waiting to see what demands will be made on his time as far as assigned outside reading from his ELA (English Language Arts) class.

I'm OK with this because, well, either way he'll be reading and we anticipate other legitimate demands on his time such as trying out for the school's modified (7th and 8th grade) soccer and basketball teams which I think teach lessons not necessarily learned in the classroom.

For myself, I'll continue my LiveJournal editing and compilation project along with some personal reading. I've decided to search out the books of Polish sci-fi writer Stanislaw Lem as well as the movies based on them. I was initially quite taken with the 2002 version of Solaris starring George Clooney and directed by Steven Soderbergh and that's probably where I'll start because an interesting and complicating aspect of this is the problem of translation, from Polish to French to English and from the book to three quite different movies.

Anyway, hopefully this is another of those things which will run its tedious and esoteric course behind the scenes, never to be mentioned on LiveJournal again. But then, who knows? At least you've been warned...

LPK
LiveJournal
9.7.2015
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Last night, my grandson had the best soccer practice he's had since joining his new team, Fusion Pegasus. The Fusion teams are a group of so-called "club teams" which play out of the Jones Rd. facility of the Family Sports Center near Baldwinsville, NY.

He joined the team a little over three weeks ago, after a successful 10-week tryout with a new outdoor league which FSC started at the beginning of the summer to give club team kids, and others, a chance to continue playing over the summer.

I'd been on his case, recently, because he seemed to be "dogging it" a bit once he got comfortable with his summer team, the Portland Timbers. He'd had a great first game with them and then seemed to be letting himself be out-worked in practices and out-played in games.

Granted, it was a little difficult to decide exactly what was going on with him since the level of competition was significantly higher and he seemed a little intimidated by that. Still, one fairly obvious thing seemed to be the lack of effort at practice.

(Another factor, quite honestly, was a lack of quality, consistency, and basic continuity, in the coaching. He had several different coaches for what they call "skills training," over the summer, and he seldom had the same coach for games as he'd had for skills training earlier in the week.)

But I figured that something was up when the manager of the facility coached Jason's last practice and seemed to be giving him some special attention and a somewhat appraising look-over to which Jason, thankfully, responded well. Then, after the final game, which the head guy also coached, he came over to the sidelines to discuss Jason's placement on a regular team for the coming year.

Afterward, Jason and I had a heart-to-heart about the kind of effort and competitive drive it was going to take to be successful at this level and how I wasn't going to ask his grandma to put in the extra hours at work if he wasn't going to work at practice and be competitive in games.

And he immediately responded that this was what he wanted to do, rather than go back to his Eastwood team where the emphasis was solely on the fun rather than personal development. He said, and I quote, "I really want the challenge."

Anyway, he was matched up in last night's practice with a kid who was about a head taller and 20 pounds heavier for one of the one-on-one drills that they use in their skills training. And although he was beaten in the first three go-arounds, he seemed to be gaining ground with each one.

On the fourth try, he finally won and continued to win through the next four. Which left the bigger kid thoroughly PO'd by the end of it. He also paid attention to instructions, showed good effort in the drills, and didn't fool around between them.

But the icing on the cake came after we had rushed home so that he could go to his K-8 open house with his dad. Jason is in what's called an "inclusion" class, which means he's with kids who have developmental or learning disabilities, and the teacher told his dad that every day he helps a little boy in the class who appears to have some pretty profound disabilities.

Yeah, I know, what a kid. We just hope and pray that he'll be able to stay on track, through all of the challenges in his own life, toward something that's productive, fulfilling, and worthy of the talents we've always felt he has...

LPK
LiveJournal
9.21.2012

Some days

Jan. 3rd, 2012 10:37 am
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Some days, it seems like the best you can say of them is that you "woke up on the right side of the dirt." This might be one of those days. Like Christmas, this year, except without all the wrapping paper and the fa-la-la and the errant offspring that you'd like to choke.

Oh wait, we did have one of those this morning. Our son, who moved himself and our grandson out to Bumf*ck, Egypt a month or so ago, had a "problem with his alarm" this morning and was sitting down to a leisurely breakfast when my wife finally got through to the girlfriend to be assured that they hadn't crashed on snowy roads on the way in.

When they finally did get into town, I had to meet my son at his place of employment to take my grandson to school almost an hour late. Which I'm pretty sure ruins his perfect attendance record for the year. Not to mention the work he will undoubtedly have missed during that first hour.

So all right, I'm a mean, cantankerous son-of-a-bitch who thinks that things ought to be done just so. But I've worked awfully hard to instill some values in my grandson that I hope will carry him toward success and happiness in life after I'm gone. And I'm thoroughly pissed that my son doesn't get that I've had to make this effort because he has not.

But I guess what angers me most about this is that it's started to color my relationship with my grandson, whom I love and care about more than anything else in this world...

LPK
LiveJournal
1.3.2012
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It was kind of fun standing in the crowd of parents, grandparents and others, waiting for the kids to burst out of the building after their first day of school.

Jason reported that he liked his new teacher and his new class. We'll see how that holds up over the course of the school year. He also said that he was one of only two or three in his class who turned in the completed packet of summer homework and that his teacher told him she was pleased that he had done so. Yesss!

Gotta go make the little kid's lunch for day 2!

LPK
LiveJournal
9.8.2011

First Day

Sep. 7th, 2011 09:50 am
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It's the first day of school for kids in the Syracuse City School District, it's raining hard, and it's a long sprint for a little third-grader to the school's front door. Jason's mom lives on the other side of town, and has to put his sister on the school bus there, while my wife worked a double and can't be at home to see him off either.

But he knows that his grandma works extra to buy him school clothes and shoes and that she treated us to dinner at Friendly's last night even though she couldn't be there. It was her way of rewarding the very productive day we had finishing up the packet sent home by the third grade teachers for over the summer.

So this morning he hopped out of the car wearing his new jeans and shirt and sneakers and brought with him a summer reading log full of Magic Treehouse books and a month's worth of practice in the dry-erase books which we successfully used to improve his handwriting.

He also went there knowing why it's important, even at his age, that he do well in school and with an understanding that he needs to stay focused, all on his own, because I probably won't be in the classroom with him this year.

But as hard as we've worked to instill that sense of personal responsibility, I hope he carries with him an equally strong sense that we are here for him. That even if we're not in the classroom, or even able to see him off on his first day as a third-grader, we're ready to do whatever a family can to help him be successful on all of his first days and all of the days thereafter...

LPK
LiveJournal
9.7.2011

Kid Golf

Aug. 25th, 2011 09:40 pm
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Two summers ago, I bought a USKids hybrid golf club at Walmart for my grandson Jason. He was six years old then, and needed something to do between the end of spring soccer and Little League and the beginning of school in the fall. I also bought him a bag of wooden tees and a pack of foam-core practice balls. Unlike the whiffle-style practice balls I remember seeing when I was a kid, you can actually drive the foam-core ones reasonably straight and far and they're still not dense enough to damage anything they hit.

At first, we tried teeing-up behind the house, but the yard is small and fenced in on all sides and we kept losing the balls. So then we moved out front. The front lawn is a postage stamp-sized mound of grass between the sidewalk and front porch but there's enough room to swing a golf club if there's no one on the sidewalk. And the neighbors' front lawns offer a half-block fairway in either direction, so that was where we ended up playing.

From day one, the little kid had a vicious swing, probably due to the hours of batting practice we'd done with him for baseball. Only problem with that is that in baseball you step into the pitch and drive off the back leg for power. In golf, you keep both feet in place and develop power through the length of your swing. But he caught on quickly and, every so often, between outright misses and the ones that dribbled a few feet down the sidewalk, he'd smack one three or four houses down the street.

Until last winter, that was about the extent of our golf activities. Occasionally, we'd go over to Sunnycrest Park, where there's a city-owned nine-hole course, not to actually play the course but just to practice drives off the hill nearest our house. And he'd play an occasional round of Putt-Putt with his dad or Aunt Sarah.

But during the Christmas break we stayed overnight at the Turning Stone Casino Resort and decided to take a walk over to the Sports Dome where there are tennis courts, a handball court, and a two-tiered driving range and practice green for golf. And we decided that on our next visit we'd bring the hybrid and try the driving range.

I can't tell you how funny it is to see this skinny little fifty-pound kid driving balls eighty and ninety yards off a tee when the adults around him are struggling just to make contact with the ball. Of course, it's taken us a while to get to that point and consistency is something that all golfers must continuously work for but, since we've been going every week, that's come along too.

On one of our first trips to the range, Marty the club pro stopped by and, after chatting for a few minutes, took us down to the instructional area where he did a computer analysis of Jason's swing, gave him a Ping 9-iron that had been cut down to kid-size and fitted with a new grip, and told us about a fun-with-math website to help with the academic side of things. (Marty has an eight or nine year old of his own.)

Since then, we've added a USKids putter and, most recently, a USKids Ultra-Lite driver. The advantage of a pure driver is that it has the longest shaft length combined with lightest mass and is specifically designed for distance off the tee. And even though Jason's hybrid is a cross between the driver and an iron, some feel that the driver itself can be a bit tricky for beginners to master. (For one thing, the loft or angle of the striking face is a lot shallower than that of the hybrid or an iron.)

With that in mind, I warned Jason that his new driver might take some getting used to. I was still fumbling around in one of the bags of loaner clubs, stationed along the railing behind the driving range, when I happened to glance over at Jason. He had teed up his first ball, set his feet, and with no hesitation blasted it into the dome wall beyond the ninety-yard marker and about 10-15 feet off the floor.

All I could say was, "Gee, that must be a good sign."

LPK
LiveJournal
8.25.2011 (b)

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