Another Memorial Day is another opportunity to remember Merwin Brewer

The gravestone on the left is that of Merwin Brewer. He is buried in a civilian cemetery in Buckinghamshire, UK.

(NOTE: This post originally ran on the blog on Memorial Day 2012, and then again on Memorial Day 2015. It seems appropriate to revisit it–with a few small edits to bring it up to date–as this young soldier is still in my thoughts each year on the last Monday in May.)

Every Memorial Day, I think of Merwin Brewer.

There probably aren't many people who think of Merwin Brewer on Memorial Day anymore, or on any other day, for that matter. He has been dead for a century.

Merwin Brewer was an American soldier who died on the Western Front at the tail end of World War I. His official address was listed as Cleveland, Ohio, but he was born in my hometown of Wickliffe, Ohio. Our local American Legion post is partially named after him (Brewer-Tarasco).

The annual Memorial Day parade is a big deal here in Wickliffe. It's one of the better parades around, with two marching bands, lots of candy, and 45 minutes or so of entertainment for anyone willing to stand and watch the whole thing.

The American Legion used to have a group of local kids walk in the parade carrying signs with the names of Wickliffe natives who have died in war. At the front of this group was always a young person holding a sign emblazoned with Merwin Brewer's name.

The 30 seconds or so it took for that sign to pass by us was the only time the Memorial Day parade turned truly somber for me. This is partly because, as I've mentioned before, I have a morbid fascination with the First World War and the way millions of young men were killed during it. No war is good, but this one was particularly tragic.

According to this site, Merwin Brewer died on November 13, 1918, from earlier wounds sustained in combat. That was two days after the war in Europe had ended. No one wants to be the last man killed in a war that’s already over, but Merwin was one of those who fell just short of making it through alive.

Merwin served in the Argonne and in Flanders, both the scenes of brutal, bloody fighting. I often wonder exactly how he died. It was quite possibly from a shrapnel wound. Artillery was the #1 killer in the war, and countless soldiers succumbed to infections and internal injuries suffered when they were hit by flying hunks of metal from exploding artillery shells.

His story doesn't sound particularly distinctive. His life ended the same way millions of others ended, probably in some military hospital. But Merwin Brewer is as real to me as any one of my family and friends, because he was born in the same place I was born. He was a real person whose death, now long forgotten, probably brought unimaginable grief and sorrow to his family back in Ohio.

He was only 22 years old, the same age as my son Jared. Just a baby. "Virgins with rifles," that's what Sting called the soldiers of the First World War.

I'm as guilty as anyone of treating Memorial Day as a festive day off from work instead of a time for reflection. But while I'm eating my grilled hamburger later today or lounging outside with my family, I promise I'll spend at least another couple of minutes thinking about Merwin Brewer.

It seems like the least I can do.

I know the reading glasses are coming, but so far I've managed to hold them off

 

A couple of weeks ago, a reader asked if I could please increase the font size of the posts on this blog, as the default size was relatively small and could be difficult to read.

It took a few minutes to figure it out, but I managed to bump up the point size of all posts on the blog permanently (or at least, as of this writing, I think I did).

He/she asked for this change "for visually impaired older folks," and gently reminded me that I would at some point be joining their ranks.

Which is undoubtedly correct. Just not yet.

More than once here I've wondered when I'm going to need to start wearing reading glasses. It's of course not a matter of "if" but "when."

Still, right now, at the ripe old age of 51 1/2, the cheaters are not yet a part of my life.

I can still read books and newspapers without the benefit of visual augmentation, and I can do it without having to hold them way out at arm's length.

The reason, my eye doctor tells me, is because I had LASIK surgery 20 years ago, and that actually bought me some time when it comes to seeing things that are close by. I had the procedure done to enhance my distance vision, so this added bonus on the other end of the spectrum two decades later has been nice.

But it will go away, and likely very soon.

My wife has needed reading glasses for a number of years, as have many of the people with whom I graduated from high school. It happens. You buy yourself a bunch of cheap pairs from CVS and you keep them in spaces where you're likely to need them (your living room, your kitchen, your car, your bedroom, etc.), and you're fine.

I'll get there. But in the meantime, you'll excuse me while I go read something written in 8-point type and mock my peers who cannot achieve this feat of superhuman visual acuity.

I'm glad we learned French in grade school in my town

I've mentioned this before, but I grew up in a school district where everyone took French from the time they were in first grade.

I actually studied the language nonstop from the age of 6 through my third year of college. I am not fluent in it because I was never in a situation where I was forced to speak it in order to survive, but I can read it fairly well, and my vocabulary is still pretty expansive.

The advantages of having taken French at such a young age were not limited to a better understanding of the French language and Franophone culture in general. It also gave me a better command of English. I've always said the French composition class I took at John Carroll advanced my writing skills more than any English composition class could have.

It also helped that I enjoyed all of the French teachers I had (all of whom, with one exception in college, were female, by the way). There was old Madame McCoy in the early grades. She would push her little cart of French books and flash cards from classroom to classroom and try her best to get us to learn the most basic French words.

Later it was Mademoiselles Chader and Gagliano, then Mesdames Rees and Whitehorn. They were all excellent teachers, and each left an indelible impression on me.

Mlle. Gagliano later became Madame Pumphrey, and we remain Facebook friends to this day. In sixth grade I remember her having us do a project that resulted in me writing a one-man play that I acted out in class, all in terrible, terrible French. But it was such a beneficial exercise because it forced me to make good use of my French-English dictionary, and it gave me a better understanding of verb conjugation and tenses, which were the major focus of instruction in Madame Rees' class the following year.

Wickliffe, like most public school districts of which I know, has long since abandoned the practice of elementary-school language instruction, which is too bad. I assume it's a matter of resources and the effects of state testing, but I feel it's a huge loss. If nothing else, taking a language when you're very young works so well because you're such a sponge for picking up new words at that age.

Of course, it wasn't too hard to remember the French words for "weekend" and "hot dog," which as I recall were "le weekend" and "l'hot dog." I think I aced the quiz the week those were on the vocabulary list.

Try as I might, I don't think I really understand what cryptocurrency is

 

If you pay any attention at all to the news or online chatter, you very likely have come across the term "cryptocurrency." Or at least you've heard of specific examples of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.

Here's the thing with cryptocurrency: I kind of get what it is, but I kind of don't.

Not that you should ever rely on Wikipedia to be the definitive source for anything, but here is how Wikipedia defines cryptocurrency:

"A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange wherein individual coin ownership records are stored in a ledger existing in a form of a computerized database using strong cryptography to secure transaction records, to control the creation of additional coins, and to verify the transfer of coin ownership."

Why yes, of course! How could I be so dense?

Seriously, though, I do understand parts of that definition. "Medium of exchange" is clear enough. That's what "real money" (i.e., dollars and cents") is for most of us. And it's all kept track of online through a strongly protected accounting ledger that basically says who owns how much crypto and how it changes hands.

But like...how does it work? How do you use it? I'm sure it's pretty easy, but I don't know the answers.

It gets more confusing when you start talking about Dogecoin, which was apparently created as a joke but is somehow actually legit? Maybe?

Please understand that I never wanted this to happen. And by "this," I mean fundamental changes to the world that I simply can't grasp. Or at least I didn't want them to happen until I was, like, 90 years old and had an excuse to not really understand paradigm shifts of this nature.

But I'm only 51. This shouldn't puzzle me like it does.

It would probably help if I started my own crytocurrency. I'm going to call it CarCoin, and the entire system will be based on the several dollars' worth of literal coins I keep in a little compartment in my Honda Civic. I have them there in case I need, for example, an extra couple of pennies to create exact change at a drive-through.

If you're willing to give me three bucks, I will allow you to be an investor in CarCoin. Or at least I think I will, because I'm not exactly sure that's how it works.

Memories of the last day of school

Yesterday was the last day of school for my son Jack. Our two current college undergrads, Jared and Melanie, finished earlier this month, but Jack and his high school classmates took their final exams this week.

When I was young, school went all the way into mid-June. Of course, it didn't start until after Labor Day, so it worked out. But I liked it when, by the time I got to high school, they had shifted the school year to start and finish earlier.

No matter what the date, though, there was something magical about that last day. In elementary school, it meant a picnic or party of some sort.

In second grade, for example, our class went to what was then known as Twin Lakes Park in Wickliffe (now Orlando Park) for last-day festivities. I was wearing jeans and it was hot, but I was anxious to play softball with the other kids, so I wolfed down my lunch and ran over to the ball field.

The combination of the heat and my overly zealous approach to lunch made me feel nauseous as I stood in the dirt infield with my glove on and the sun beating down. I promptly threw up all over second base, after which I felt perfectly fine, but the moment caused Vince Boyce to say (with extreme calm and matter-of-factness), "Time out. Scott barfed."

The end of the school year was a time to get your final report card, clean out your desk, and get ready for 11 1/2 weeks of glorious summer vacation.

Jack is doing all of that this week, through he doesn't have a desk to clean out. And his summer, while sure to be glorious, will include frequent shifts working at Chick-Fil-A and almost-daily training runs to get ready for the fast-approaching cross country season.

Once I entered the full-time workforce, what I missed most was not necessarily the long summer break (though that would be nice to have), but rather the giddy anticipation of it.

Enjoy it, kids. Like many things in life, you won't know how great that last day of school is until you don't have it anymore,

The monotony of being unemployed in a pandemic is getting to me

I write these blog posts about two weeks in advance.

I have no idea how I'm going to feel as you read it on May 26, but as I write it, I can say unequivocally that the pandemic/unemployment lifestyle is driving me insane.

I am a creature of habit and generally thrive on routine...just not this one.

My days are endless loops of driving Jack wherever he needs to go, taking care of the cats, washing dishes, making the bed, doing laundry, cleaning up as needed, and of course, looking for a job.

None of those activities is especially unpleasant, but taken together, it's all becoming a little tedious.

You know how so many American housewives back in the 50s and 60s got hooked on pills because they couldn't stand living the same day at home over and over and over? I absolutely empathize.

I admittedly also get to do more enjoyable things like play my sax, write these posts, watch TV with Terry, read, etc. But it just feels like the menu of options is limited, and I've ordered everything on it several times already.

This is privileged, First World whining of the highest degree, I know. I am in a very fortunate position compared to many. It's just that I'm not at all good at being bored.

Some people are, you know. I'm not one of them.

(Incidentally, it is not lost on me that my wife has lived this life for many years, particularly during those long-ago days when I would go to the office and she would take care of the house while tending to a large brood of small children every day. But she is superhuman and thus doesn't count in this discussion.)

I need to start working again. I'm very confident the right opportunity will come along, and possibly very soon. But until then, well...

I would be fine if I never unloaded a single dish from the dishwasher ever, ever again.

Hello, running, my old friend, I've come to jog with you again

For many years, I was a runner.

Not a runner who would win road races or anything, but depending on the size of the race, for a few years there I was a decent bet to walk away with a third-place age group medal or something similar.

Then I stopped running, in part to train for a 250-mile walk that, as it turns out, isn't going to happen.

And now, only very recently, I've dipped my toe back into the running pool.

The reason is simple, and it has almost nothing to do with the health benefits of the activity: I just miss the act of running.

That is to say, I miss the feeling of going fast and grinding out miles and just plain moving at a pace at which I'm not likely to move the rest of the day.

As much walking as I've done over the years, I don't enjoy it the way I enjoy running.

So I've started getting back into running.

The problem, as you may have gathered from yesterday's post, is that while I'm not quite starting at zero, I'm still really, really out of running shape.

I have weight to lose, lung capacity to rebuild, and the ever-present specter of a pulled calf or hamstring muscle to deal with. So I'm starting v-e-r-r-r-r-r-y slowly.

Father Time being undefeated and all, there is a limit to what I can do in terms of weekly mileage and pace, but I know I have a lot of room to grow still.

At age 51, I am just not yet ready to permanently hang up the running shoes.

Still, keep that Ben Gay nearby for me, if you would. You know, just in case.

Many of us are trying to get ourselves together, health-wise...again

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and then, a few days later, completely erased it and started over.

The original post was a whiny rant about how my weight has yo-yo'ed over the years and how I have a hard time creating lasting change when it comes to weight blah blah blah. It wasn't fun to write, nor would it have been fun for you to read.

Not that this will be particularly "fun" for you, either, but in the days after I wrote the first post, my wife started a 28-day transformation program bought for her by some of our kids as a Mother's Day present. She had to scramble to align with the timing of it, as it has a real-time online component and officially began the day after Mother's Day. But Terry did the requisite shopping and food prep in short order, and she has stuck with it well and is seeing great results.

This was inspiring to me, so I went back to the only method of weight loss that has ever truly worked for me, which is Weight Watchers.

"WW" is how they brand themselves nowadays, and I should mention that it works for me only when I do the in-person program (i.e., go to weekly meetings and weigh in, which creates a certain level of accountability...the online-only version doesn't really go well for me).

So I've been attending meetings and weighing in at my local WW "studio." And of course I'm losing weight, because all it is, really, is a well-designed system that makes you do what you already know you should be doing: Eat less food, eat healthy food, eat tasty food.

If you do that and move more, and you have weight to lose, you're going to drop pounds, guaranteed. We just all have different mental and emotional make-ups that necessitate different approaches to achieving that goal. They're different paths, but they all travel in the same direction and all lead to the same place.

Will I get back down to my goal weight? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I will. I started around 208 a couple of weeks ago and will aim to get back into the 185 range.

The question is, though, will it be permanent? That remains to be seen. But before you can answer that question, you have to start down the path. And that's what I'm doing.

Allowing your spouse the financial freedom to pursue a hobby

For many years, Terry told me I needed some sort of hobby or side project to distract my mind from the day-to-day grind of work and family.

I finally took her up on it late last year when I got back into playing the saxophone. I practice almost every day and really enjoy it.

But it is not an inexpensive pursuit.

Since Christmas she has allowed me to buy:

• The best tenor sax I've ever owned ($2,000)
• A new mouthpiece for it ($325)
• Reeds (an ongoing expense that so far has totaled maybe 50 bucks)
• Various instructional books as suggested by my teacher Ed (well over $100)
• A new neck strap ($12)
• Accessories that include a reed case, swabs to clean the mouthpiece/neck/body, and other items I'm probably not even considering at the moment (again, probably $100 or more)

Granted, much of this comes from "extra" money we've recently gleaned from various sources. But still, we have a mortgage, kids, etc. As CFO of the family, it was well within her right to veto any of these purchases.

Yet she let them all go, because she's wonderful.

You can't put a price on your partner's happiness. Despite what I consider to be slow progress in my playing, the sax is a source of contentment for me.

As far as I'm concerned, Terry can do whatever she wants for herself, whether it's related to crafting or any other hobby she wants to take up.

Having to listen to me squeak out diminished 7th arpeggios and scales for hours on end has earned her at least that much.

When saxophones roamed the earth

 

When I began listening to popular radio in the early 80s, there was about a 1 in 3 chance that any given song was going to feature a saxophone. Saxophones have long had some presence in pop music, but in the 80s, the sax – if not quite king (that was the guitar) – was royalty.

Nowadays, not so much. I like a lot of today's music, but at best you'll hear a sample of a sax every once in a great while.

This was brought home to me recently when I was listening to Huey Lewis' "80s Radio" show on Apple Music. Huey hosts this hour-long show once a week, and as you might imagine, it focuses solely on songs from the 80s...well, there are a few very late 70s and very early 90s tunes thrown in there, but you get the gist.

Huey will often organize these shows around a theme, and this morning I listed to his saxophone-themed show.

I still have 20 minutes more to go through, but so far I like his selections. Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now" was in there, as was Hall and Oates' "Maneater." "Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash was a nice surprise, and it was good to hear "Smooth Operator" by Sade.

One selection that baffled me was Rick James' "Super Freak." Great song, but the sax solo at the end is incidental at best. Certainly not an "iconic" 80s saxophone song like the others.

Still, on balance, it's a fun listen, as it hearkens back to my favorite era of pop music AND features the instrument I've played for more than 40 years.

When the saxophone becomes cool again, I'll be ready to lay down some cool licks in the studio. I'll be 90 years old, of course, but when a modern artist comes looking for that 80s sax sound, trust me, I'll be everyone's go-to.

This is quick story about me and Ken Burns

When I was on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," I correctly answered a question about documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. It was about the type of documentaries he had produced to that point in 2003, and it was relatively easy for anyone even passingly familiar with his work.

Fast forward about seven years and I'm sitting at the City Club of Cleveland listening to Mr. Burns speak. He was great, as were all of the speakers I used to go and see at the City Club back then.

(This, by the way, is one of the biggest things I miss about working in Downtown Cleveland. I became a member of the City Club just for the chance to attend these lunchtime gatherings they would hold featuring world-class speakers. It's amazing the array of people I saw there.)

When the session ended and everyone in the room headed for the elevators, Mr. Burns was surrounded by people wanting to say hello, shake his hand, ask him questions, etc. He was clearly in a hurry to get out, presumably because he had to be somewhere immediately afterward or was catching a plane or something.

I patiently followed the little blob of people gathered around him until I could briefly get his attention. I had to walk fast to keep up with him, but when I told him my Millionaire story, he stopped and looked at me.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, "true story."

"And you got the question right?"

"I sure did."

"How much was it worth?"

I couldn't remember and told him so, though it was one of the early questions among the 10 I answered correctly.

"Huh," he said. "Being the answer to a question on a game show. That's a new one for me. Thank you for telling me about it."

And he meant it.

If you're not familiar with Ken Burns and his PBS documentaries on baseball, jazz, the Civil War, and a host of other topics, check out his IMDB page. He's a fascinating individual.

One of my chief responsibilities these days is chauffeuring our suddenly busy 15-year-old

At some point during their high school years, many kids find themselves–for the first time ever–in need of a calendar to keep track of their schedule.

One day you're spending hours playing Minecraft or hanging out with your friends or whatever, and the next you have this long list of responsibilities and commitments.

My son Jack has reached that point this school year. The combination of COVID and unemployment means that I'm often the one to ensure he gets every place he needs to go. (For years with the other kids this responsibility fell on Terry, so I'm fine carting the boy around town.)

This spring, for example, a typical day for Jack looks like this:

7:55AM: I take him to school.

8:00AM-2:18PM: He's in school.

2:18PM: He gets picked up from school and brought home.

2:30PM: He's back at school for track practice (yes, it would probably be easier for him to just take his track stuff to school and change there, but we live very close, so...he gets a quick trip home)

3:30PM: I pick him up from track practice and take him back home.

3:45PM: He changes into his Chick-Fil-A uniform and I drive him to work.

7:00PM: I pick him up from Chick-Fil-A and take him home.

7:15PM: He's back home, where he immediately throws his work clothes into the washer, goes upstairs, and either chills out for the first time that day if he can, or he does homework.

NEXT DAY: Repeat.

All of us have gone through this process at some point in our lives. It's not that big a deal in the long run, but it is something to which you have to learn to adjust.

Until Jack turns 16 next winter and gets his own car, his mom and dad will be the ones making sure he gets from place to place.

Considering he's the baby of the family, I think I can live with that for another nine months.

Someone in your house needs to be the Chief Technology Officer

This would have been our dream machine in, like, 1987.

There was a time back in the late 90s and early 2000s when I would purchase a new Dell desktop computer for our family once every three years.

This was a very big deal because (a) it was an expensive purchase, and (b) even then, the computer was a focal point of our household. The kids were little and played lots and lots of CD-ROM games, Terry did our finances on the computer (and of course still does), and I used it for just about everything.

When the computer would arrive in a couple of big boxes--CPU in one, large monitor in another--it was my job to unpack it, connect everything properly, and get it up and running for general usage.

I was and remain, almost by default, the person who determines what sort of computer equipment we buy. Most families have someone who fills this role. They may or may not be more technically inclined than others in the house, but they purposefully keep up with the latest developments in home computing and/or always know exactly which items are on sale at Best Buy.

As the Chief Technology Officer at 30025 Miller Avenue, my primary responsibilities are:

• Tech support. I fix problems as they arise with the computer and/or printer.
• Procurement. If the need for new hardware becomes acute, I do the appropriate research and make a recommendation to Terry, who as Chief Financial Officer has final say on all major purchases.
• Setting the vision. What will our home technology set-up look like in, say, 5 years? It's my job to figure that out and formulate a plan to get us there.

Right now we still regularly use a desktop that was expertly put together for us by our friend Darryl Panchyson, but in time I would rather each person have a powerful, easy-to-use laptop connected to a home cloud network on which we store our files.

We do each have our individual laptops right now, but some of them are better than others, and in my case, when I do have a laptop it's work-issued.

The point is, we have a goal. It's that, plus figuring out why our Epson printer prints so poorly despite my best attempts to clean the heads. That one remains a mystery.

Why I never took another shop class after 8th grade: A true story

I went to school a long time ago. Even though this photo was taken in 1902, this is roughly what our mechanical drawing classroom looked like...minus the giant deer head.

The obvious answer to the headline is because I'm one of the least handy people you will ever meet. I can fix computers, but almost nothing mechanical. I can perform basic car maintenance, but anything electrical or plumbing-related baffles me. I don't even paint well.

But there's another reason why I never took what we referred to as "industrial arts" classes beyond 8th grade, and it involves one of the most interesting characters of my middle school years, Mr. Lowell Grimm.

Mr. Grimm was my shop teacher, my football and basketball coach, and a 50s music aficionado (I assume he's still into the 50s music. I haven't talked to him in a while.) He was intense, though as I understand it, by the time I had him in the early to mid-1980s, he was a less-intense version of what he had been when my brother had him as a teacher in the very early 70s.

I did see him break at least two clipboards over Ron Vargo's head, though. Ron was, thankfully, wearing a football helmet each time, but still.

He yelled at us quite a bit, but that was fine because a lot of teachers and coaches yelled at us then. You were just kind of used to it.

I also think he liked me, though he could never figure me out. In football, for example, I was a running back who ran much more effectively to the left side of the line than the right. He noticed this and one time said to me, "Tennant, you're an enigma."

He often called me "Lou," since I would wear my dad's "Lou's Tire Mart" softball shirt over my shoulder pads at football practice.

Anyway, we had to produce a relatively complex mechanical drawing as our end-of-year final exam in Mr. Grimm's 8th-grade industrial arts class. I was not a good draftsman, nor would I ever be. But I gave it a shot.

I took the finished drawing up to Mr. Grimm's desk and handed it to him. It was, at best, maybe C-level work.

Mr. Grimm looked at the drawing, then he looked up at me.

He looked back at the drawing, then he looked at me again.

"Tennant," he said, "I'll tell you what. If I give you an 'A' on this, do you promise never to take another industrial arts class again in your life?"

I didn't plan on any taking any more shop classes anyway, and I knew I didn't deserve an "A" on the drawing, so I jumped on this deal immediately.

We both kept our ends of the bargain. Mr. Grimm gave me that "A," and I never set foot in another shop class again, assuming you don't count Mr. Lewis' electronics class the following year in 9th grade (which I don't).

Mr. Grimm, incidentally, was shot during the terrible Wickliffe Middle School shooting of 1994. He was trying to save kids at the time, of course, because for all of his intensity, he really did care about us.

I interviewed him some years later for the Wickliffe Schools Alumni Association newsletter, and he talked about the shooting, how he survived it, and his recovery. Not surprisingly, he said going through something like that tends to mellow you out, both as a teacher and as a person.

But I think he was a big softie at heart all along, and I have the "A" on my final 1983-84 report card to prove it.

Your nightstand as a reflection of your life

From the very first, since our wedding night, I have always slept on the right side of the bed while Terry has always slept on the left side.

That's speaking from our perspective as the occupants of the bed. It would be the opposite if you stood at the foot of the bed and looked at us while we were sleeping, though this would be creepy and I don't know why you would do it.

Anyway, this arrangement has actually never made sense to me in that I am left-handed while Terry is right-handed, which means we're always using our non-dominant hands to reach for things on our respective nightstands.

This may seem inconsequential, but my nightstand is one of the most important and underrated pieces of furniture I own.

As you can see above, it is home to my lamp, my clock radio, my phone charger, and my Apple Watch charger, along with a host of books and notebooks.

Behind the phone charger is also the tube of Chapstick I use every night just before we go to bed because I have a thing about chapped lips.

This nightstand is clearly central to my existence.

The books on top of the nightstand, by the way, are the books currently "in rotation," as they used to say in the radio business. They're the ones I'm reading or at least trying to read at the moment (along with the hefty "Castles of Steel," which you can see resting on the floor next to the nightstand and about which I recently told you).

The in-rotation books at the moment include my friend Brian Sooy's "The Gift of Small Potatoes," "The War Poems of Wilfred Owen" (which my daughter Elissa and her boyfriend Mark thoughtfully bought for me), and my former co-worker and current friend Kate Tonti's debut children's book, "Lionel Lincoln Lawrence LePet: The Loudest Child Anyone's Ever Met."

The books at the bottom of the nightstand are waiting to be read and re-read. They need to be patient. I will get to them.

Inside that pullout drawer is a host of stuff that constitutes a true bedroom junk drawer, ranging from spare batteries to birthday cards I've received to a portable communion set to a large collection of free-range paperclips.

I'm not sure what my nightstand says about me beyond the fact that I really need more storage space in my life.

Are there biological substances to be cleaned up somewhere in the house? That would be Dad’s job.

Somewhere along the way, probably dating back to the mid-90s when we lived in our old house, it became my job (and almost exclusively my job) to clean up any and all bodily fluids and excretions deposited in inappropriate places.

You would assume I’m talking about pet messes, and I am. But human accidents also qualify. One time, when one of our children was very young, he/she stood at the top of our stairs (still clearly asleep), said the words “I can’t take it anymore,” and proceeded to pee in a manner that the urine ran down the first several of the carpeted stairs.

Terry cleaned up the child, I cleaned up the carpet.

It’s not that I’m any better at this task than anyone else, mind you. I’m just more willing to literally get my hands dirty, I guess.

This has all become more relevant in recents weeks as we have undertaken various home renovations, from a new basement floor to redoing our master bathroom.

Anyone who has ever endured home improvement projects knows a certain amount of chaos is inevitable. Your life and your routines get turned on their ear for a time, which is fine when it comes to the humans in the house.

Our five cats, however, don’t take change well. Or at least the older few don’t.

The result has been that Fred, my longtime feline companion, has taken to peeing in places that are decidedly not his litter box. I’ve stepped in and/or cleaned up more cat pee in the last few weeks than probably the last several years combined.

We’ve tried almost everything you can do to get him to stop, but as of this writing, we’re leaning toward a solution that has worked in the past with Fred. It’s likely we’ll be locking him up in our basement storage room for a week or so with his special urinary tract food, water, and a litter box so that he can retrain himself around where and where not to pee.

I imagine this will go a long way toward solving the problem, but I’m sad at the idea of putting Fred in kitty prison for a week because, you know, he’s my buddy. We spend a lot of time together, and I know the days of his confinement will be nothing but misery for him.

But then the stench of cat pee fills my nostrils again and I become resolute. Fred, you are hereby sentenced to a week in The Hole. Your only hope is to remember that we buy that expensive Arm & Hammer kitty litter every few weeks for a reason, my friend.

UPDATE 5/16/21: Since this was written, Fred did spend the better part of two weeks in the storage room, and the messes stopped. He also went to the vet and was diagnosed with a thyroid condition that likely contributed to the peeing problem. He is now on a day-release program (he only spends nights in cat jail) and is doing well, and has just started a course of medicine that should help. Go Fred!

At some point, often in your 40s or 50s, you have to decide how the rest of your life might look

Life expectancy for American men these days is right around 78 years. My plan is to exceed that, and exceed it by a wide margin if I can.

Assuming things work out that way (and let's face it, there's always the chance they won't), I still at best have reached the halftime of my life, or more likely am somewhere early in the third quarter of play.

When you get to this point, you stop for a second to look back at where you've been and, more importantly, try and figure out where you're going.

This is especially true in my case. Professionally, I find myself in an unplanned mid-career pause. Personally, I've now lost both of my parents and am fast approaching a life that, sometime in the next decade, will see Terry and me living on our own again, sans children for the first time since 1993.

While I am very much a planner, I'm not much of a long-range planner. I've never had a roadmap for my career, and things have been so chaotic around our house for so long that I don't even think much about next week, let alone next year.

Retirement? At some point our financial guy asked me when I wanted to stop working full-time. I told him 67, which was honestly about as arbitrary an age as I could possibly have come up with. Yet our entire portfolio is now structured to get me out of the full-time workforce when I reach that age in 16 years.

Where will we live? Will we stay in Wickliffe? Will we even stay in Ohio? We've had conversations in both directions. I don't yet know the answer.

What do the last 16 years of my career look like? Will I stay in corporate communications? I assume so, but I'll admit I don't know. Life is funny that way...the whole "man plans, God laughs" thing. If nothing else, I've learned that things change in the most unexpected ways, and the best you can do is chuckle with the universe and roll with it.

What about my health? I don't like where I am physically right now. I was in great shape five years ago, but I've lapsed back into old habits that aren't conducive to beating that life expectancy target. That all needs to change immediately.

So many things to consider, so many variables, so many possibilities. One way or another, we all wrestle with these questions on our journey. And to be sure, I have more questions than answers right now.

Including whether the Browns will win a Super Bowl in my lifetime. That one is killing me.

Only now, 18 years later, have I become familiar with our upstairs bathroom

When we bought our house back in 2003, I had a dream that I was walking through it and discovering all sorts of long hallways and new rooms of which I hadn't been aware. The house just went on forever.

It's a decent-sized house for our family, but trust me, it's not that big.

Except I'm experiencing a little deja vu, as I'm only just now getting to know a room in the house where previously I had spent maybe an average of 30 seconds a week.

That room is our upstairs bathroom. Or, as I've often referred to it, "the kids' bathroom." The kids' rooms have always been upstairs, so that bathroom has pretty much been theirs over the years.

The only time I generally set foot there is during my weekly toiler paper rounds, when I happily restock each of our four bathrooms with TP. And that has been about it. I never used it to shower (or any other purpose for which it's intended), and it's not a room I've ever cleaned with any regularity.

Until recently.

By the time you read this, I'm hoping our master bathroom renovation is complete and it's no longer the case that the upstairs bathroom is suddenly the most popular room in the house.

As I type this, though, we're very much mid-renovation, so all showering and other functions are happening up there. A bathroom that rarely entered my consciousness previously is now the star of the show, as rooms in our house go.

I've heard reports that this bathroom is dirty and disgusting, usually relayed by one child blaming the state of it on a sibling. So a few days into the renovation, I cleaned it.

My conclusion: It wasn't exactly pristine, but I've seen far worse.

If nothing else, I have newfound appreciation for this full bath that has existed in relative anonymity (at least in my mind) since George W. Bush's first term.

Not that I'm ever going back in there, mind you, but it was nice to get to know a place that I'm paying for.

The good fortune of having wonderful neighbors

I take for granted far too many blessings in my life. One is the fact that, for the past 18 years, we have had amazing neighbors.

They have been the same neighbors the entire time, by the way. Even with 18 years under our belts since we moved in, we are still the newcomers on this end of Miller Avenue.

Just to the west of us are the Warnekas, Tim & Beth. They have been there forever and a day and are just about the nicest people you will ever want to meet in your life. Their kids, Chris and Bridget, spent a lot of time playing with our kids when they were all growing up.

In fact, I am going to post a brilliant video that Bridget, Chloe and Jared made back in 2010. It is a tour de force of acting and video editing that deserves to be remembered. None of them is likely to be happy I've posted it, but it's too good not to share:

On our east side are Joe and Lisa, whom I've mentioned here before. My kids have been cutting their grass for the past decade or so. Last summer, Terry and I got to visit the campground where they spend much of their time during the warm-weather months. Quite often you will see Joe in our backyard doing pull-ups on our playground set.

We are a fairly tight-knit group among these three houses.

Which is just something I take as a matter of course until I hear horror stories from others about their neighbors. It makes me realize how fortunate we are to have such kind, considerate, pleasant people living near us.

That realization, combined with another viewing of the Tik Tok video above, makes me inordinately happy.

We mark the passing of time through anniversaries...good and bad

Dates stick in my head, so it's never a problem, for example, when I have to recount the various jobs I've had and the precise start and end dates for each.

I can rattle those off no problem. Even though it's probably sufficient to say I started at Dix & Eaton in "December 2002," I'm always very specific. It was December 2nd, 2002. My last day at The Cleveland Foundation? Why, that was February 1st, 2011 (a Tuesday).

Today is one of those job-related anniversaries. On this day in 1997, I started as managing editor of Urology Times magazine. As I always like to point out, this is and was a real publication, and it was such an interesting and fulfilling job. I was only there for a little more than two years before I accepted my first PR position at The Cleveland Clinic, but without Urology Times, that Cleveland Clinic job likely wouldn't have happened.

So in that sense, May 12th is a good day.

Unfortunately, it's overshadowed by another May 12th date. On May 12th, 2009, as I was brushing my teeth in preparation for a trip to the dentist, we received a call from my brother telling us that my sister Judi had suddenly, shockingly, passed away.

She was only 56, just five years older than I am now. And she was Judi, the oldest sibling and driving force of our family. She organized things. She laughed and smiled. She made everyone happier.

And then...she was just gone. In many ways, we still haven't recovered.

Every May 12th for the rest of my life, I will think about that day and the days that followed. It was just stunned sadness, and it lasted for a very long time.

It never really ended, I suppose.

Still, we move on, because there's nothing else to do. Days like this come and go on the calendar, and as we get older, connected to each one is a memory, a milestone, and a set of emotions.

Some are good. Some aren't.

On balance, this one is an "aren't."

Break out the home movies!

The person in our family who gets most excited about watching old videos of our kids is not even, biologically speaking, a member of our family.

She is Lyndsey, my son Jared's girlfriend. Like all of the significant others in our little circle, we have long considered her to be part of the family despite what both the government and DNA evidence might suggest.

It's Lyndsey who, when a group of us find ourselves together in the living room, will excitedly say, "Let's watch home movies!"

This prompts me to retrieve a small plastic bin from our closet containing nearly 40 DVDs full of home videos we've shot over the years, along with a multi-page printout detailing exactly what can be found on each DVD and what year(s) it was shot.

I am nothing if not organized.

Lyndsey is the one who selects a disc to watch, and I then pop it into the Blu-Ray player for everyone's viewing pleasure.

Mine was really the first generation with easily accessible video cameras that documented our lives from infancy through high school and beyond. People had movie cameras prior to that, of course, but I didn't know many of them, and they simply weren't as prevalent as those VHS cams that could be seen all around school sporting events and concerts back in my day.

The current generation, of course, has had their lives captured on digital video (mostly via smartphone) from the moment they emerged from the womb. Seeing themselves on a TV screen is nothing to them.

At some point a few years ago, I decided to convert our old VHS and camcorder tapes into a digital format before those old magnetic media deteriorated or otherwise bit the dust. It was a long project, but I'm glad I did it.

The footage we have covers a period ranging from 1988, when I graduated high school, through about 2012, when we started shooting most things on our phones and storing them directly onto hard drives or Facebook.

Watching this stuff is a lot of fun, particularly when the kids get to see themselves as newborns (and in the case of Melanie, from the time she was just a few minutes old and still covered in goo while laying in the hospital warmer).

I so wish we had video footage of Terry and me as infants. But alas, we were born in the very late 60s. It just wasn't that common back then.

So we've made up for it by building a library of video clips of all of our kids. We may be compensating a little.

They're not all gonna be winners: Reading an everyday blog

At one point in the memorable (to me, anyway) David S. Pumpkins skit on Saturday Night Live, the wonderful Kenan Thompson, an elevator operator in a haunted house, says, "Hey look, it's 100 Floors of Frights. They're not all gonna be winners."

I often think about that line when I'm writing a blog post I know is likely to amuse only me and almost no one else. More often than not, low page view numbers on that post prove me correct.

I am truly grateful that anyone would ever choose to read even one of the entries here. The fact that many of you read regularly, and some read every day without fail, is immensely gratifying.

All of which is to say that, posting every day as I've done since Nov. 30th, pushes you to the limits of your creativity. Some days, ideas come readily. Others, it's a struggle.

Then again, you as a reader get exactly what you pay for here, so maybe I shouldn't feel too bad.

I appreciate your feedback on the good posts and your patience with the not-as-good ones.

Like today, for example.

Music is my way of keeping my brain from turning to mush

If you read books and articles about longevity and the ways in which you're supposed to take care of yourself as you get older, you will inevitably come across the admonition to challenge your mind continually.

Whether it's learning a new language, taking a class, or just doing difficult crossword puzzles every day, the idea is that your brain is like a muscle. And as with any muscle, it must be constantly worked or else it will eventually lose functionality.

I would argue my brain has already atrophied somewhat, but my weapon of choice in the fight against cognitive decline is the tenor saxophone.

As I've mentioned before, I take weekly private lessons from a marvelous sax player and teacher named Ed Michaels. Ed is a talented musician and educator, and just an all-around good guy. I get excited for Mondays at 5:30pm, which is when I get the Google Duo notification indicating that Ed is calling and it's time for our virtual lesson.

These lessons, and my subsequent practice sessions throughout the week, are not easy. Nor would I want them to be.

Ed throws a lot at me, but he does it with a smile and always with the encouragement that he's doing it because I'm "an A-plus student." Whether he's just saying that to make me feel good or he really means it, it doesn't matter. It always inspires me to work harder.

And hard work it is, as I've never formally learned, for example, chord structures. Seventh chords are the foundation of jazz improvisation, so I spend a lot of time playing outlines and scales around major seventh, dominant seventh, minor seventh, half-diminished, and diminished 7th chords.

These are, as Ed calls them, "The Big Five." And the sound, feel, and sax fingerings for them do not come naturally to me. Thus, I have to drill myself continually.

I'm getting there. I'm no Charlie Parker, nor will I ever be, but slowly, I'm getting closer to playing like Bird than I ever have.

It's not only fun, it's also making my mind work hard, which is largely why I do it.

Forty years from now, when I'm a drooling mess and about to keel over, my goal is be able to play the best solo on "Autumn Leaves" you'll ever want to hear.

I almost can't wait.

At what age do you start noticing you've left crumbs on the counter?

I'm trying to think back to when I first became aware of my own household messes and the need to clean them up.

I'm not talking about cleaning your room when you're a kid, but more like the debris you leave behind when you make yourself something to eat in the kitchen.

I assume, at some point when I was growing up, it finally entered my consciousness that:

(A) Hey, I just made a sandwich and I notice there are bread crumbs and a tiny dab of mustard on the counter.

(B) Mom would clean that up if I just walked away, but she shouldn't have to do that.

(C) I'm going to use a wet dishrag and wipe down the counter before I go back to my room.

I don't remember it, but I also assume that, prior to this moment, I pretty much just walked away, oblivious to the fact that I had left my mother yet one more household task to handle.

I bring this up this because there are crumbs left on our kitchen counter all the time. Like almost every day. I'm not quite sure which resident of our house is doing it, but I know it's not me, and I can say with certainty it's not Terry.

Which leaves the three of our kids who still live with us. Rarely does anyone ever own up to having done it, but I don't even care about that so much as imparting the valuable life lesson that you must be aware of your own messes and clean them up.

Is this something you learn from your parents? Or does it just suddenly dawn on you as one of the major milestones in the maturation process?

And none of this "I was going to come back later and clean it up." You make a mess, you clean it up right away.

The only exception is if the house is on fire. And even then, you clean up that counter if the flames are two or more rooms away.

Revisiting five songs that make dads of daughters cry

NOTE: This is recycled content, but unless you're a really longtime fan of this blog, you won't have read it. It originally ran on April 6, 2012. I posted it again back on February 27, 2015. It is far, far, far and away the most widely read thing I've written here. Whereas a typical post on this blog nowadays garners 100 to 200 page views, this one has 24,654 views at the time of this writing. Apparently people really care about their daddy-daughter songs...

Inside every father of a daughter is a big softie. No matter how hard and tough the guy may seem, I guarantee he has a tender place in his heart for that little girl.

The music industry knows this and has, on more than one occasion, taken advantage of it by producing songs designed solely to make us cry. I hate them for it.

There are actually relatively few things that will make me cry. If a Cleveland sports team ever wins a championship, I will cry (NOTE: This was written before the Cavs won a title in 2016. And for the record, I did mist up a bit.) This is silly, I know, but I won't deny it. If it ever happens in my lifetime, I will cry.

I mist up at most Hallmark movies, too, though I usually deny it and blame it on dust in the room or something.

And anything sentimental to do with my kids – particularly my girls –  will make me cry. I'm no different than most other dads in this respect.

So here, then, is one man's list of the Top Five Daddy-Daughter Songs Designed to Make Grown Men Weep. We'll go in reverse order:

#5 - "Daddy's Little Girl" - The Mills Brothers

No list of this kind would be complete without the most requested father-daughter dance song of all time. From the very first verse, The Mills Brothers go for the heartstrings: "You're the end of the rainbow / My pot of gold / You're daddy's little girl / To have and to hold." If any of my daughters make me dance to this song at their wedding, I will collapse into a sobbing heap right then and there. That's it, just four lines into the song and I'll be done. I'll telling them this now so they can be prepared for major embarrassment on their big day.

#4 - "Stealing Cinderella" - Chuck Wicks

Country singers are experts at exploiting the daddy-daughter relationship. We could actually have filled this list with nothing but country tunes, but for my money, this one is the best. It tells the story of a guy going to his girlfriend's father to ask for her hand in marriage. It's obvious to him the dad worships his daughter, and that "To him I'm just some fella / Riding in and stealing Cinderella." Note that the Cinderella figure will play a major role later on. For now, if you're not familiar with "Stealing Cinderella," check out the video.

#3 - "When She Loved Me" - Sarah McLachlan

Kind of a surprise entry. On the surface, this isn't necessarily a daddy-daughter song. It's from the "Toy Story 2" soundtrack, and it's sung from the perspective of a doll whose owner has grown up and doesn't play with her anymore. But the song has always reminded me of my daughters, and sometimes specifically of Elissa and the two years or so when I worked nights and was with her every day while Terry was at work. "Through the summer and the fall / We had each other, that was all / Just she and I together / Like it was meant to be." Excuse me for a second, someone must have emptied the vacuum cleaner bag because it's getting really dusty in here...

#2 - "Butterfly Kisses" - Bob Carlisle

Darn you, Bob Carlisle. You're an evil, evil man. This song is terrible, and by that I mean it's awesome. What makes it terrible is that it's one of those "let's follow the little girl as she grows up and becomes a woman and end on her wedding day as her father walks her down the aisle" songs. Which of course makes you realize that time passes impossibly fast and that you're probably not making the most of it. Every time I hear this song, I go looking for Melanie to see if she wants to play a board game or go outside or just do anything except grow up like her rotten sisters are doing.

#1 - "Cinderella" - Steven Curtis Chapman

You want to feel guilty? You want to feel terrible? You don't even have to listen to the song itself. Just listen to Steven Curtis Chapman explain the inspiration for it. That's enough right there to make you feel like the worst parent in the world. And then consider how he must feel every time he sings it and has to think about his 5-year-old daughter who was killed when her brother accidentally ran her over in his SUV as she was playing in the family driveway. Sometimes when I listen to this song, I don't know whether to feel terrible, inspired, or both. I lean toward "inspired," but it's hard not to feel guilty about the amount of time you spend with your little girls when he sings, "'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight / And she'll be gone." Wow.

A kindergarten registration email triggers a wave of nostalgia

I'm signed up to receive emails from our school district, and for the most part I find them interesting and informative (even though we only have one child left in the district).

Many aren't necessarily relevant to me, and that's OK. It only takes a second to delete them and be on my way.

One of those messages came over recently. It was a notification of how parents in the district could sign their children up for kindergarten. My first instinct, of course, was to get rid of it because, thankfully, we don't have any 5-year-olds remaining in the house.

But then I stopped and thought about kindergarten registrations and kindergarten experiences from years past. And for all the effort we as parents put in to getting our kids raised and prepared for lives out there of their own, I realized I kind of miss those days.

There was the time, for example, when I came home from work on the day Melanie was going to register for kindergarten. I excitedly asked her, "Mel, how was kindergarten registration?" This prompted a confused look from Melanie and a loud gasp from my wife, who had completely forgotten about the whole thing that day.

(In Terry's defense, her life back then was unending chaos. The fact that she even got dressed in the morning was always impressive to me. And it turned out OK, as we were able to get Mel signed up even after the official registration period, as evidenced by the fact that she did eventually graduate and all.)

I also remember our first kindergarten registration with Elissa, who quite frankly is a genius and was ready to start writing dissertations at age 5. However, one of the skills they evaluated during registration was the ability to cut with scissors, and apparently Elissa had some trouble with that.

We as young parents were of course appalled that anyone would see anything less than perfection in our little girl and were accordingly offended.

Oh the funny things you do when you're a rookie.

Then there's poor Jack, who on his first day of kindergarten got off the bus, walked into the school, realized he had no idea where to go from there, started crying, and eventually had to be rescued by a kindly school aide.

It should be noted that, a year later on the first day of first grade, Terry wanted to walk into the school with Jack to ensure he got to the right room this time, but she was not allowed to go in. And what happened? Yeah, you guessed it. He went in alone, had no idea where to go, started crying, and had to be rescued again.

Poor kid.

Sleep-wise, having pets can be worse than having babies

Our first two children, Elissa and Chloe, began sleeping through the night within a week of coming home from the hospital.

Jared, our #3, took a few months.

Melanie, the next in line, honestly took a good year and a half.

Jack, the youngest, was somewhat less than that but still gave us troubles.

I've often said that, had this all happened in reverse order and the first two were problem sleepers, there would not have been five Tennant kids. You would right now be reading a blog titled "Two Kids and That's It."

Those days are long in the past, of course, but I'm still often awakened at times when I would rather not be awakened.

Nowadays, the culprits are our five cats. And really, it's mostly Fred.

Fred is ready to wake up and eat any time after 4:30am. I'm an early riser, but he tends to start bothering me during that delicious half-hour before I get up when the bed feels warm and comfortable and you doze so peacefully.

This bothering takes the form of questioning meows, followed by Fred positioning his face literally within three inches of mine (as if to say, "hey, you awake?")

This is always followed by Fred placing a front paw on my cheek. It would almost be sweet if it wasn't so annoying.

I will usually roll away or swat his paw from my face to indicate my disagreement with Fred's position that it is, in fact, time to start the day. But at that point it's really no use. There's no way I'm going back to sleep, so after five minutes of just laying there to show Fred who's boss (though he clearly knows the truth), I roll out of bed and proceed to feed the cats, scoop their litter boxes, sweep up around said boxes, etc.

All things considered, I think I would prefer going back to the babies-in-the-house phase of our life.

I don't really have the stomach to be making scholarship decisions

As some of my friends and family know, I started a scholarship last year in memory of Ray Milavec, a former Wickliffe educator, coach, administrator, and legendary PA announcer who passed away five years ago. The Ray Milavec Memorial Scholarship is intended to be given annually to a graduating senior (or seniors) from Wickliffe High School.

I had never given much thought to how scholarships are established or awarded, except for the ones my kids were up for and/or won. But now, as I look forward to handing out the second set of Milavec Scholarships at Senior Awards Day in a couple of weeks, I find myself really wishing I had more money to give.

The reason is simply that a LOT of deserving young people applied this year, and the available funds are such that, at best, we can give three $500 awards. Nine students submitted applications, and only one-third of them will walk away with money to apply to their post-secondary educations.

These nine applicants—all of whom are female, by the way—have clearly aced the high school experience. They all have outstanding grades, are involved in a range of extracurriculars, and give back to the community in a variety of ways.

If I'm being honest, I will tell you there is virtually no difference among them. I mean, really, there's nothing that raises any of them above the pack, and I mean that in a good way. They're all great kids with bright futures.

I simply don't want to have to make this decision, but I have to, so I will. And I'm going to feel bad for those who don't win, even though I'm sure they'll all clean up at Awards Day in other ways.

There are people better suited for this job than me, and they're people who aren't afraid to make decisions and live with the consequences. Sometimes I'm like that, but not always.

Looking ahead to next year, I'm thinking about going back to the original intent of the scholarship, which is to give just one award of $1,000 to one student and call it a day. That means even more of them will be excluded.

I may also drop the interview requirement (even though I love my 15-minute FaceTime conversations with the applicants), and may even change it so that no one actually applies. Rather, I would establish a set of more well-defined criteria and work with the counselors and other school administrators to pick a student who best fits them.

Of course, even then, I'm going to walk away sad that we can't give money to every one of the 100+ young adults who graduate each year from Wickliffe.

Let me tell you, it's not easy being wishy washy.

I type very fast, almost violently. I have Miss Riley to thank for that.

I'm just old enough to have taken a typing class back in high school.

On a typewriter.

They don't teach typing anymore that I know of, largely because kids are keyboarding from very young ages and generally become proficient typists on their own.

But back in 1984 when I was a freshman, there was such a class as typing, and it was taught by Miss Riley.

She was a sweet older woman who insisted on proper technique: Curved fingers, hands on the home row (A-S-D-F for the left hand, J-K-L-; for the right hand), etc. We practiced typing various sentences from a typing textbook.

If you're a young person reading this, it probably sounds like something from the Middle Ages. And technologically speaking, it may as well have been.

Now, let me say in my defense that these were electric typewriters we used. I have older friends who learned on manual typewriters, so I'm not that ancient.

Still, if you watch me type, you would assume I learned on a manual typewriter because I absolutely pound the keys.

People used to walk by my office at work (this is true) and ask, "Are you OK?" They would hear me banging away and assume I was taking out my aggression on the computer keyboard.

The positive result of it all is that I type really, really fast. And pretty accurately, too.

I also tend to go through keyboards quicker than most people.

But rest assured, I'm not angry. I'm just a violent typer.

I took the SAT 34 years ago today. Why does my brain retain this information?

THINGS THAT ARE STUCK IN MY BRAIN FOR WHICH I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO USE:

• The B-side songs for every Men at Work single on 45
• The usual starting lineup for the 1979 Cleveland Indians
• Casualty counts for a host of World War I battles
• Detailed plotlines for most episodes of The Andy Griffith Show
• The quadratic formula
• My News-Herald paper route from 1981 (seriously, I could deliver that route today and not miss a house)
• The fact that I took the SAT on this date in 1987.

To that last point...who cares? Why would my brain decide this is something worth remembering?

It also likes to point out that, after I finished the test, I drove directly to Solon High School to join my track team at the Solon Relays.

Is there any practical use for this information? Of course not. But this has never deterred my brain, which delights in storing away the most irrelevant of nuggets.

On the other hand, it will not reveal to me such things as where I put my wedding ring, the exact ingredients in my wife's favorite Starbucks drink, and which light switches control which lights in our house (the house where we have lived for nearly 18 years).

Why, brain, why? Why do you do this to me?

Maybe you explained it to me one time and now I'm just forgetting.

Living right next to the longest interstate highway in the U.S.

And by the way, Google Maps guys, it's Miller Ave., not Miller Dr.

If it weren't for a covering of trees and a sharp dip in elevation, I could look to my right at this very moment and have a clear view of Interstate 90.

As I often like to tell my family, I-90 is the longest of the U.S. interstates, running just over 3,000 miles from Boston to Seattle.

And it is our immediate neighbor, located maybe 300 feet south of our front porch.

Having lived in this house for nearly 18 years, I don't notice the sound of freeway traffic whizzing by just over the trees, but visitors sometimes do. That low white noise is just part of our everyday background, and I'm only really aware of it when a semi uses its Jake brakes or there's construction nearby.

Other than that, it's easy to forget this major thoroughfare is right there outside of our door.

I-90 is a popular route for sports teams and music acts that travel by bus, and I've always wished I could somehow compile a list of all of the famous and semi-famous people who have driven right past our house.

But alas, there's no way to do that apart from posting a sign on the freeway that says, "If you're a celebrity, please call Scott's cell phone and let him know you just passed by."

I'm so tempted, though. I'll bet I would hear from John Madden.