2 Polly and sherry

sherry and polly were my bestest friends when i lived on east fifth avenue.  living two doors down from our house, they were ever-ready playmates.  sherry was my age and polly was a year or two younger.  the games we played were dependent on the season; the ones i remember most took place in our backyards and in the adjoining alley.

one game in particular was 'school', a summer favorite.  did we really miss school that much?  we found two old school desks which served as our props.  pooling some pocket change we bought construction paper, handwriting paper, etc., to add to our own collection of pencils and scissors. taking turns being the teacher was a delight... for the chosen teacher.  not only did the teacher get to mimic our teachers from shepard elementary school and to teach whatever s/he wanted, but the teacher was a allowed to discipline within reason.  a slap on the hand, putting a dunce cap on the offending student, or placing the student in the corner were common punishments, punctuating with a bit a giggling and eye-rolling.  more times than not, the punishment became more important than the game itself.  someone would get angry, slam and book or rip a piece of paper and walk off in a huff.  but after a time of calming down, we would resume our friendship, one that we vowed would last forever.

one particular thing that bound the three of us together was our mutual understanding of sherry's pseudo-language. many could not understand the short morse codeish words with which she spoke.  but polly and i understood perfectly, sometimes too perfectly given the saucy language that this preacher's son learned.  i can remember my mom bringing a snack out to us, and chatting with us for a few minutes.  later on, she would ask me to interpret what sherry had said.  how simple was that!

by the time sherry and i had finished second grade, sherry and polly moved to west columbus and we moved to gahanna.  there were several of phone calls which diminished quickly as we engaged in our new environments.  within a few years, they moved to gahanna and sherry was in my sixth grade class.  but it wasn't the same.  both of us had changed and we hung out with different people.                 just as sherry had lost her pseudo-language, so had we lost a friendship that had once been so important to both of us.  by the time high school came around, we didn't even speak.

friendships are rarely forever.  how in the world would i keep up with every friend i ever had?   two people can share a bond for a time that can feel like forever.  but life happens; the friendship dissolves or fades away.  and we are left with memories, stories, and secrets that we shared.  the melancholy that comes with the memories are reminders that friendships past and present become a part of who we are.  we move on, open to other possibilities.

fyi, while still in high school,  polly and her boyfriend died by carbon dioxide poisoning in a parked car. for years after, i heard nothing about the family. in the recent past, however, sherry and i were facebook friends for awhile.  i think we both needed to know each other's whereabouts. nothing more.  we had discovered that we now spoke different languages.

3 When time begins to speed up

don't you just love it when a child who has been asked how old they are will fiddle with their fingers until they finally get the right combo.  for some reason, the number 3 is the hardest to show.             try it.  can you feel the remaining fingers try to jump into the act?  sometimes, a kid will hold down the other fingers so that 3 is clearly shown.

one of my first memories happened when i was three. my red rocking horse was in the dining room and i sat atop pretending to be someone going somewhere.   i remember thinking, "i am three, no one loves me.".  i am sure it wasn't meant to be a rhyme, but it clearly showed that i felt alone.  perhaps i had just been punished or i could not find anyone to play with me.

one, two, three, GO! was our way of starting a race. the contestants would put their feet right behind the line drawn by a stick in the dirt.  then the caller would count one....   two....    three....   GO!  what fun it was to draw out the numbers, especially if it made a contestant cross the line too early.

whether it's 1, 2, 3 or 3, 2, 1, the numbers in order depict the imminent start of something.  it's as if the word go needs three words to build up steam, rev the engines, or muster the courage to take action.  and so today, i have been occupied with 3 as the start of the final countdown.

having lost 27 lbs since march 1, i realize i am losing motivation to keep going.  were this time to extend much longer, i am sure 'cheating' would take place.  two months is a long time to keep up this regimen.  however, i have done it!    and now the final countdown begins.  and on monday afternoon, i will wake up from surgery to start a new journey toward health and well-being.

4 Until

i am not a football fan.  i don't like a game that takes forever to go from one side of the field to another. the ticket prices are enough to cover your income taxes.  and on the holiest of holy days, the main attractions are the commercials and the half-time show (especially to see if some forbidden word slips out of the performer's mouth or some body part falls out of..  well, where it belongs).

coming from a family (dad and brother) that loved football, i learned a few things from hearing the tv blast away. while mom, kathy, and i were cleaning the kitchen after sunday dinner, i would pick-up some football jargon.  some phrases were met with a loud groan from the crowd (pass incomplete) or a crazy loud cheer (touchdown). but one call was a uniquely tense call.  the announcer would say, "fourth down and 1 yard to go".  i remember it as "close yet so far away".   eventually, the tension would fall away as the crowd's reaction would announce the result of the play.

sometimes, even though we want something so badly, it remains fourth down and 1 yard to go.  we are almost there but not.  it's the fourth down and we have one more chance.  it's a set up for anxiety.  we would do almost anything to cross that line, even if it's just that big toe.

but as many stories reveal, we must wait it out until...  it's the 'untils' in life that take courage, patience, and a big ole' honkin' stress ball to squeeze.  the untils will come in their own time.

5 Year of the tiger

one of my favorite years teaching elementary school was in 1983-1984.   it was a year that we clicked. most of the students loved to learn and were eager to try crazy experiments to prove a point.  in one experiment, each student was to make something using one kind of simple machine (gear, pulley).  what fun we had with the successes and the almost successes.  another experiment involved dropping an egg from a third-story window without it breaking. imagine twelve students and their teacher looking out the window watching the eggs go splat! or remain intact.

we adopted a room mascot, which i still have today.  it was a little one-eyed stuffed tiger we found in a garbage pail.  each week the person doing the best work or putting forth the best effort took the tiger home for the weekend.  students added necklaces, bracelets, etc., to make tiger more of their own.  once, while the class was reading quietly, i raised a ruckus and slammed my desk drawer on tiger.  the class was in an uproar, yelling "mr. richey" and laughing uncontrollably.

learning and laughter are a great mix.  again the students were reading quietly while their teacher, after about 20 minutes, was getting bored.  so, he pretended to have a cold, sneezing and coughing.  the students did not see him put a clean tissue on the top of his shoe.  they did see him blow his nose loudly into a tissue and then dropped it.  when he sat up, he put the clean tissue in his mouth, chewing on it as the students were grossed out.  we spent about 10 minutes telling jokes we had played on someone.  and then we returned to our reading, quite refreshed and energized.

the students were old enough to start thinking for themselves and young enough to still want a hug from their teacher.  one was especially affectionate, sitting close to me at recess while the others played.  he had no interest in running around.  instead, he would clasp my arm as he would tell me stories and would explain scientific concepts he had learned. twice that year, he asked me to be his dad.  you see, his father was gruff, often smelling of alcohol, and totally disinterested in his boy's education.  the boy was evasive when i asked him if his dad hit him, but he told me his dad would yell a lot.  my heart was broken.  if i could have, i would have taken him home and raised him myself.  but given the circumstances, i could let him know everyday that i loved him.  leaving on the last day of school, he ran up, grabbed me around my neck, and hugged me, sobbing as he said, "i love you, mr. richey, i wish you could be my dad".   i cried all the way home.

by the way, five of the twelve students from that year have found me on facebook.  they are constant reminders of a special time and place where we spent a special year together.

6 sunday evening t.v.

it was a technicolor moment...  the tv screen went from black and white to living color!  i had just witnessed that jaw-dropping scene from the wizard of oz for the first time. dorothy had just walked out of her house and into munchkin land.  what made it even more exciting was that i had waited for around    18-20 years to watch it because we had to be in church on sunday evening.  every sunday evening. but on the once-a-year oz tv sunday evening, i wanted to be home.  i wanted to watch the magic on tv.

of course, i had to hear 10,000 reiterations of various scenes at school the next morning. had i the nerve, i would have taken the school p.a. system hostage, telling everyone to shut their damn mouths about that movie.

i am hoping for a dorothy moment.. soon.  beginning   in 6 days, i will be given a gift somewhat like dorothy's special shoes, that will help me lose weight very quickly.  but the journey from there will be mine.  every step will be a choice of my own.  like dorothy, i have friends and family who are supportive and helpful.  donna and i have worked on buying, storing, storing, and experimenting with foods that i can eat.  it will be about 12 weeks before i can eat bits of normal food.

but ultimately, having had the joys, fears, fun, tears, setbacks, and the moveforwards of my oz experience, it will be me, only me that can decide my path saying, "i want to go home".

the almost of 9

i don't remember nine ladies dancing in our church xmas musical or cantata.  dancing, of course, was banned.  but you could count, however, the 9  plus children that would use the long choir pews as a track with the teachers chasing them.  and yet i  heard that 9 x 3 people had a fun evening of square dancing at     that same church.

1. nine can be a symbol of almosts.  it's almost a two-digit number, but not.  just as 99 is almost a three-digit number  but not quite..  can you imagine earning 9,999 points when 10,000 would have earned a beautiful car.  almost doesn't win the game.  but it can elicit the response, "you get an A for effort.

2. nine can be a symbol of the coming excitement of zero!  as 9 turns to 8, which turns to 7, the churning stomach, beating heart, and  foggy head are signs of excitement and anticipation.  it's a great feeling even as it makes time grow remarkably slow.

i really need to get finished! talk to you soon!!                                    

10 Countdown

ten days is a common milestone for events yet to come.  ten days until the wedding, the play, the concert, the ball game...  or the surgery...   my surgery.

in ten days at about 1:45 i will be taken to surgery where my stomach will be reduced to the size of a thumb.  and waiting, as some friends have told me.  for weight loss that will give me my life back.

the countdown has begun....   10,